Oh my (let me look at those eyes)
by GorgeousGreyMatter
Summary: A few months ago, he might've been able to solve this with some force—a little man-handling, a snarl, a glimpse of teeth. But he looks at Stiles's broken face, knows he's seen too much horror and blood and evil, the whole Big Bad Wolf routine is just going to fall flat. (Alpha pack AU, Soulbond!fic)
1. Chapter 1

Things spiral quickly after Jackson is "cured." Erica and Boyd make it back eventually, left beaten, broken, and near death at the border of Hale territory. He and Peter carry them back to the Hale house, and Peter holds them down, quieting their screams as Derek pops their bones back into place, licks the blood from their open wounds. They fall asleep and Derek doesn't stay with them, doesn't need to stick around and see how Peter looks at him, like he's failed, because he knows.

Derek could say he isn't sure how things got so fucked up, he could claim ignorance, bad luck, anything, but he knows. He knows why. It's his fault. From the moment he let Kate Argent into their world, into his home, his family, his pack, it was over, because everything he touches burns to the ground.

And now the alpha pack is coming, and he knows—knew from the moment he and Peter saw that sigil marked on the scorched wood, glowing, incandescent in the moonlight.

They were all going to die. And Derek can't stop it, feels so bone-tired, that he just wants to lie down and let it happen.

Derek doesn't sleep much anymore. How can he? He has a pack, sure, but it's splitting apart at the seams, limping on its last legs like a sick and dying animal. Scott doesn't trust him, Derek certainly doesn't trust Peter (a man whose very re-appearance has defied nature), and Erica and Boyd spend most of their time wrapped up in each other, speaking in quiet whispers, shrinking away whenever Derek tries to approach.

Isaac he trusts, thinks maybe the boy is the only good thing to come out of this whole nightmare. He trusts Derek completely, wholly, like a brother, and they really are family. When Derek does manage to fall asleep, he wakes up gasping, his nostrils filled with the memory of the harsh scents of smoke and fire and ash, and Isaac is there, curled into his side, whining softly.

He thinks a lot about that night, when he bit into Gerard's flesh, tasted death and decay and poison. He thinks about the look on that Stilinski boy's face, like his whole world was breaking apart.

"The sheriff's boy—Stiles—he'd make a good wolf," says Peter.

"He never talked," says Erica. "He didn't sell you out, any of us."

Derek closes his eyes and sees black eyes and bloody lips, freckled skin marred with bruises.

He doesn't know why it bothers him so much, but it does.

He doesn't know why, but he asks Isaac to watch over him—the human boy stupid and fearless enough to run with wolves.

The new den doesn't feel right. Sure, yeah, it's nice not to live in a house marked by death, haunted by ghosts and guilt, but it still feels wrong. It goes against every instinct, to run and hide like this, but it's necessary (that's what he tells himself, every morning, every day). At least the house's condition, rotted wood and peeling walls, gives Derek something to do, something to work toward. While the pack is at school, he and Peter do the best they can to repair it. The master bedroom is all cleared out—it isn't much, a pair of ragged curtains to keep out the sun, and a giant brass four-poster, creaky and a little rusted at the bottom.

As alpha, he supposes he should be the one to stay in it, but he rarely sleeps anyway, so he doesn't even snarl when Peter jokingly claims it for himself. He just shrugs and brushes past him, not saying another word as he jumps down the stairs, out the door, loping into the dense forest, letting the trees swallow him up Peter talks too much and doesn't really say anything. It's maddening.

This is the only way he feels like he has any control, as he strips bare, letting the wolf take over.

He hasn't gone full wolf in so long. It feels like the first exhale after nearly drowning. His human instincts fall to the background, and he feels solid, still, standing in the shadows of dappled sunlight and ancient oaks.

He runs until he can't run anymore.

He runs until he feels free.

/

Derek can hear them coming from a mile away. Stiles has so many tells—the frantic, hummingbird's pace of his heart, the way he practically vibrates with excess energy. So, Derek's already pulled his jeans back on, coming out of the trees to meet them when the jeep rolls up. The first frost has passed, so the air is crisp, and Derek can see his breath like smoke hovering in the air. He wishes he could feel it. It's been a long time since he felt the cold.

When the pair jumps out of the car, Isaac already looks guilty, whimpering softly under his breath as he presses into Stiles's side. Derek wants to growl at the beta, show his teeth, but Isaac is already so jumpy, and it's been hard enough convincing him he wouldn't get hit if he so much as breathed wrong.

He settles for what he hopes is a disappointed glare.

Of course, the first thing Stiles does is mouth off—he always does (it's why he'd make a terrible Beta, no respect, no submission). His wolf prickles in indignation, but all Derek sees are the blooms of black and blue against Stiles's cheek, the split in his lip, still slightly swollen from where Gerard's hands struck. But there's only anger in the boy's eyes as he spits words as hot as fire: "Call off your fucking dogs okay. I don't need a babysitter. I don't need anything from any of you."

It makes Derek see red, literally.

"We never found Gerard's body," he says, trying to keep his tone flat and dull, disinterested.

"Isaac, go inside," he adds, turning to the young beta. Isaac flushes, but he nods, and when he passes by, Derek reaches a hand out to squeeze his shoulder reassuringly. He watches the tension drain from the boy's body with a feeling of satisfaction because that's the one thing he seems to be able to do right.

"Don't fight me on this, Stiles," Derek growls when they're alone. He isn't sure how much Stiles knows—about the alphas, about Boyd and Erica (probably more than he should, certainly more than Derek wants him to), and seeing Stiles's body, bruised and broken like this, all it does is reinforce his worries.

Derek huffs in annoyance when Stiles glares right back at him. It shouldn't drive him crazy like it does, that Stiles won't give in to him, doesn't even flinch under Derek's gaze, his eyes bright, golden-brown, and unflinching. If Derek is honest with himself, it makes him nervous, but this rarely happens anyway, so it's something he tries to push back down into the recesses of his mind.

It bothers him, he thinks, because Stiles (despite his struggling, his stubbornness, the fact that he seems to have been dragged into Derek's life kicking and screaming) is pack. He knows Isaac can sense it, Peter can see it, and Derek can certainly smell it. Stiles, despite his complete and utter humanness…he feels like pack, smells like woods and earth and den and…

Something.

A few months ago, he might've been able to solve this with some force—a little man-handling, a snarl, a glimpse of teeth. But he looks at Stiles's broken face, knows he's seen too much horror and blood and evil, the whole Big Bad Wolf routine is just going to fall flat. Because Derek looks at Stiles and he doesn't carry himself like a teenager anymore. He carries himself like a soldier.

It makes something in Derek ache.

He can't help it, he lets out a soft whine, clipped, brief, but he feels like the sound echoes in the hollow quiet of the trees, not even muffled by the wind and the creak of quaking branches. He follows it with a growl, rumbling deep in his throat, just to cover it up. But he struggles to fight the urge—as alpha—to comfort and heal. It's both satisfying and infuriating, and the two feelings war in him, making his stomach churn and his chest feel like there's a fire burning in it.

"You don't know anything about what's coming," Derek says. He knows Stiles carries his scent, they all do, his pack. Stiles is marked, just as much as they are.

"Hate me, hate Isaac, fine. But I—we—can't leave you unprotected."

Stiles just scoff like what Derek says means nothing. "I'm not unprotected. I'm not—I have Scott, and I'm not completely inept," he pauses, breathing deep, "and I've made it this far, haven't I?"

Derek laughs at that, he can't help it—but it's cold and bitter even to his own ears, an empty sound that makes his skin crawl. He knows, and Stiles should know, better than anyone, that it isn't Scott who plays the role of protector in that relationship. Looking into Stiles's eyes, seeing the glimpse of uncertainty right before it fades into stubborn arrogance, maybe Stiles is starting to realize that it's been a long time since any of them could depend on Scott for anything.

He isn't quite sure when it happens, but somehow Derek is close enough to Stiles to see the thump, thump, thump of his pulse, beating frantic against the skin of his throat, stretched thin over sharp collarbone. He sees the marks of another man's hands, bruising and cruel, where they dug into Stiles's shoulders.

He wants to tell him, he wants to say, they'll think you're mine. They'll think you belong to me and they'll punish you for it.

But he doesn't say that. Of course he doesn't, because Derek doesn't know how. The words feel too raw and bloody in his throat so he swallows them down because he's used to the taste of loss by now. And he thinks he's never missed Laura so much as in this moment, because even on his best day as an alpha, it isn't anything close to her warmth and strength, the way she made everything just hurt less.

Where Laura was brave and strong and warm, he's hard and cruel, spits words out that he isn't even sure he means.

"And where is Scott now? Moping over the girl whose grandfather tortured you? Did she watch? Did she even try to stop it? Do you think she heard you screaming?" He grips Stiles's chin, forcing him to look into his eyes, and the boy's bones feel so utterly breakable, hollow, like a bird's wing. It's tragic, he thinks, Stiles's fragility, how easy it would be to smash and twist and shatter and bite and…

He shakes his head, pulling himself out of whatever trance he's just fallen into, stepping back from Stiles like he's been burned. He doesn't look back, just goes into the house, thinking maybe it's better this way, or maybe it doesn't even matter at all.

Because it's only a matter of time before this town is just bones and blood buried six feet under the earth and Derek will be the one with the shovel in his hand, digging its grave.

And Derek, he doesn't expect Stiles to follow. In fact it's the last thing he expects, and it's maddening and infuriating and strangely awing—how little self-preservation the boy seems to possess that he'd go up against an alpha without even batting an eye. He feels the hand, Stiles's frail human hand, turn him around. He could toss him off easily, but Derek doesn't, just lets himself be drawn back, folding into the touch. Maybe it's self-sabotage, maybe he's a glutton for punishment.

Either way, it's his fault.

Stiles is almost as tall as Derek, albeit much more lanky and thin, his body still a little hunched, shouldering the weight of teenage awkwardness; when their eyes lock, Derek sees fury in the boy's gaze. Derek's wolf howls, indignant, and he feels his eyes shift, the unmitigated lengthening of teeth, and thinks, a little incredulous, that he hasn't lost control like this since he was sixteen.

He reaches out, impossibly fast, his fingers curling all the way around Stiles's forearm, and Derek doesn't even think, doesn't even process what's going on as it happens.

The veins in Derek's arm flex and shudder, turning the color of ink, as he pulls out all of it, all of the pain, thick like poison, from Stiles's body. He feels twinges of it, dull and muted, a little like pins and needles after moving idle limbs— in his ribs, his shoulders, with a shudder that runs all the way up into the stiff vertebrae of his spine. Even his lips are numb as he drops the boy's wrist.

Derek opens his mouth to say something, anything, but before he can even breathe, Peter comes into the hallway, whistling a tune like they aren't all about to be systematically slaughtered like cattle.

"Aww, if it isn't my favorite little human?" Peter practically purrs, and Derek flinches, not even having to look at Peter to know he's staring at Stiles like he's a piece of prime rib. Derek watches Stiles pallid cheeks flush angrily.

And this time, when Derek runs, he doesn't give Stiles the chance to go after him.

But the boy does anyway.

Of course Derek hears him coming; of course he does, because only Stiles would be stupid and reckless enough to go crashing blindly through the forest, making enough noise that anything and everything within a five mile radius hears him blundering through the underbrush. Though Derek is tempted to keep running, fleeing from…he doesn't even know what, the unshakable urge to get as far away from everyone as he possibly can.

But he doesn't, because he hears Stiles call his name and it's something he can't ignore even though he desperately wants to, because it's like Stiles's words have roped him in, and the boy is just yanking the lead, pulling him back toward the house. Snarling in frustration, Derek turns on his heels…

And that's when he hears it:

The chorus of howls that crackles through the air like an electrical current, and it shocks every nerve, putting his body on red alert.

With a howl, he flies through the trees, not flinching, not feeling at all, as sharp thorns and spindly branches slice through his skin as he sprints (it doesn't matter anyway, as the lesions heal before they can even bleed).

By the time he gets there, he feels it, like a punch in the gut. He's too late.

There's five of them in all, not the whole pack, but it's enough—one of them holding Stiles around the middle, laughing as he struggles. Derek meets Stiles eyes and he's scared, he can see it, he can smell it—

And Derek…he's fucking terrified.

"This belong to you?" one of them cackles, running a clawed finger across the perfect, unmarred flesh of Stiles's cheek. "He's pretty…and he smells good enough to eat."

Derek's vision goes red, and with an almighty roar, he lets go—let's go of every shred of control he's ever claimed to have. All he sees is claws and teeth and blood.

But it's not enough.

It takes three of them to hold him back (they lose one, throat ripped clean out in Derek's fury), but it's not enough.

The woman-she gets away. And she takes Stiles with her.

When Derek comes to, he recognizes where he is immediately—the harsh sting of disinfectant and mountain ash, the frozen metal slab underneath him: Deaton's office. He jerks up, hears a metallic clang as he sends a tin of surgical instruments clattering to the floor, his arms flailing wildly. He feels arms struggling to hold him down as he thrashes, and he roars, teeth bared, still fighting the enemies no longer in front of him—just phantoms and ghosts and—

"Derek," hisses someone, Isaac he thinks, and Derek finally stills, opening his eyes to see his entire pack crowded into the cramped suite, their eyes blinking concernedly at him. He doesn't say anything about what happens, not at first, ignoring the searing pains in his chest and his shoulders where the alphas' claws tore into his flesh, because it doesn't matter, not now.

"They have Stiles," Derek says desperately. "They took him."

There's a chorus of swears followed by various snarls and whimpers as the realization dawns on all of them.

And this is how it goes:

They are back at the den, Deaton with them, and they are all looking at Derek like he's supposed to know exactly what to do, waiting for him to give them their orders. It's almost ironic, really— certainly says something about the state of his pack, that it takes a human, Stiles, to bring them all back together under the same roof. Derek sits in the corner, barely listening, his head hung, shaking as he balls his fists to keep from screaming.

And when Scott burst in, howling with fury, Derek doesn't even fight back when Scott grabs him by the throat with one clawed hand, even as his lungs scream in protest. He also isn't surprised when he sees Allison and her father, standing like sentries by the doorway, guns and crossbows in hand.

"This is your fault," Scott snarls.

Derek says nothing, doesn't even lift a hand to defend himself, and when he stares directly into Scott's eyes, he sees the boy's anger fade rapidly into something else—confusion, maybe pity.

"I'm going to get him," says Derek, finally breaking his silence. It's not a question, but a fact, spoken low and soft, with all the weight of a death sentence, because that's exactly what this is.

Jackson speaks, barely a whisper, from his place on the sofa, "It's a trap. They're just going to kill you."

"Yes," he says, "but I'm going anyway."

And it doesn't really hurt, the realization that he's okay with it, he's ready, to die, fine, as long as they get Stiles out, he thinks it doesn't really matter what happens to him.

"You're just going to let them kill you?" asks Erica hollowly. At that, Isaac lets out a broken cry, but Derek does nothing to comfort him this time. They don't need him, he thinks, not like they need Stiles, not like they need each other.

He's ready, and it's okay.

/

Derek tracks them easily, follows the trail they left just for him, flecks of Stiles's blood on leaves, the tattered fabric of the young man's shirt. Argent's car tracks him at a distance—they're here just to get Stiles out, purely a retrieval mission, because Derek doesn't want or need anyone else to die for him tonight.

No one had even tried to fight him on it, seeing his expression, so grave and determined.

He stops in the middle of a clearing, scenting the air with rapid intakes of breath.

He hears the growls, the snap of dried twigs, as four of them emerge from the mouth of a cave carved from water and wind into the cliff-side.

"Missing your chew-toy?" one of them crows, a man with flaming red hair and eyes to match.

Derek says nothing, his own eyes flashing in return, his hard stoicism broken only by a flinch as he sees the same brunette dragging Stiles out by the ropes around his hands, throwing him on the ground like dead weight. She follows with a swift kick of her foot, aimed at Stiles's stomach, and Derek can't help it—he howls a fractured, broken wail that makes an eerie hush fall over the entire forest. Even one of the alphas (a lanky boy, appearing no older than Stiles) winces at the sound.

And Stiles is looking at him, eyes frantic and pleading, and Derek offers him nothing more than a stony glance, resigned, as if to say, it'll be over soon.

The boy, the nervous one, flinches again when Derek steps forward, and he knows this is it—reacts faster than even he thought possible, grabbing the smaller alpha by the neck, bringing it down against the hard bone of his knee where he hears the satisfying snap of the boy's spine. He lets the boy's body drop to the forest floor, bent at an unnatural angle.

The others howl maddeningly.

Derek nods, extending his claws, and he lets them come.

It's not as painful as he always imagined it would be, dying. It's kind of easy, he thinks, as he the pack swallows him up, teeth and claws tearing at every inch of exposed flesh. As they climb over him, he halfheartedly swipes with his hands, tossing them off, if only to serve as more of a distraction. His mind is clear for the first time in weeks, and he finds he only thinks of the night he saw his home burn to the ground, wonders if this is what his family felt as flames, so hot they burnt electric blue, licked at their skin, as they choked on ashes and smoke.

Maybe it didn't hurt at all… maybe it was just like falling asleep.

When Derek sees the Argents, Allison's father holding Stiles up, he actually feels himself smiling faintly. Everything goes quiet around him, and all he hears is his own heartbeat pounding like war drums in his ears. It's oddly comforting, and he thinks if Laura could see him now, she might actually be proud of him. This is what an alpha does—sacrifice, and he's okay with it.

One of the larger alphas has him from behind, locking his arms so he can't struggle, though he's not trying to anymore. The brunette is on him in seconds, her teeth gleaming, and blood dripping from her extended canines. Her eyes are blood red and she's grinning from ear to ear, her hands raised to finish what she started. Derek shuts his eyes, feeling only the odd sensation of blood, wet and hot, dripping down his neck.

He waits, and he waits, but the blow doesn't come. His eyes flash open when he hears the woman scream, sees where a bullet has pierced her where neck and shoulder meet. It's wolfsbane, and he watches, both horrified and fascinated as her skin ripples, black and blue and ghostly white as it decays.

Derek doesn't have to look to know where the bullet comes from. He can hear the fluttering staccato of Stiles's heart, the shriek of pain as the gun recoils against his bruised and broken bones.

"No!" Derek growls, every limb of his own body screaming in protest as he grabs the woman by the throat and pulls, her head thrown back as Derek rips her esophagus from the inside out with a horrible squelching sound.

The last two screech in protest, abandoning Derek as they both go sprinting in Stiles's direction and it's everything Derek had tried to avoid.

Stupid, stubborn boy, Derek thinks, as he throws himself in front of their path, managing to gut the red-haired alpha just before he reaches out to claw Stiles from chest to groin.

The last one cries out, and it's awful—the sound of complete and utter loss and despair—it makes the hair on the back of his neck tingle. Derek feels the tips of the alpha's claws dig into his back, right as Derek's teeth shred the entirety of his neck and shoulder.

He drops the limp body to the ground away from Stiles, and turns to look at him. The boy is covered in blood and definitely bruised from head to toe, but he's alive. Alive is good.

Derek's breathing is slow, labored, and he winces as he feels his body trying desperately to heal itself, so many alpha-inflicted wounds sucking the very life out of him. His lungs feel crushed from the outside, and his vision flickers from red to white to red again. He falls to his knees in front of Stiles, the loudest sound he's ever heard, and then he doesn't know anything else.

While he is gone, lost, asleep, wherever—Derek dreams. They aren't the nightmares that have plagued his nights for so many years, no, they are memories, visions of things he'd forgotten: he's a child again, his father picking him up and tossing him in the air, his uncle peter (whose eyes are kind, not murderous, not crazed) running with him on his first full moon, his mother's touch, warm and soft, crooning a lullaby in a language he never had the chance to learn.

Sometimes, it's other things, things he doesn't understand, not consciously, but knows in his bones that they feel right: freckled skin like the constellations his sisters taught him, lips— pink and full, a steady heartbeat to match his own.

He doesn't want to wake up. He wants to crawl inside these images for ever, curl into them like he's a pup again, and never let go.

But slowly, the dreams begin to fade, his mother's face becomes blurred, the memories corrupted—pain ebbs its way into the warm, bright lights he hides behind, and he hears murmuring sometimes ( it's Deaton, mostly, though sometimes it's Peter, sometimes Scott).

But he doesn't fully wake up. Not for a long time. Not for days.

Though when he does, the transition to the waking world is violent and harsh, and it hurts. He gasps as his lungs work on their own for the first time in awhile, constricting rapidly as they rush air throughout his body. Deaton's eyes are the first he sees, so dark and old and wise in ways Derek knows he can't even imagine.

"That was very stupid of you," says Deaton, though it's with a fondness Derek doesn't think he's heard before.

He tries to speak, but nothing comes at first, just sputtering, like he's swallowed gravel. Someone hands him water—Peter, he realizes, who's hovering over him with an almost authentic-looking expression of concern and relief.

"I notice you didn't try and stop me," Derek growls, finally.

"Sometimes stupid works for you," says Deaton, smiling.

/

Peter goes to tell the pack he's awake. While he's gone, Derek gets used to the idea that he actually isn't dead, which honestly is something he wasn't expecting. He looks in the mirror, finally, when Deaton is satisfied that he isn't in any more danger, and it's bad—but it isn't the worst he's seen. Most of his wounds have healed, faded almost entirely—he thinks, most likely due to Deaton's craftiness. There are claw marks that will likely never fade completely, a shock of raised white lines running from the back his neck to his hips, a corded rope of scar tissue over his left shoulder, a jagged bite mark on his forearm.

But it doesn't matter, because he's alive.

"It's something your father would have done," says Deaton, arms crossed as he watches Derek in the mirror. "He would be proud of what you have done for the boy."

Stiles.

Derek stiffens…"My father was human, he wasn't…but Stiles," and he trails off, his lips already forming the question.

"He's alive, stable, and very anxious to see you," says Deaton. The man is smiling in a knowing way that makes Derek uncomfortable, uncertain.

"In fact, he is outside right now…"

Derek sees Isaac first, the boy looking at him with his trademark dopey grin, like Derek hangs the moon, and Derek offers him a knowing smile in return. But then his gaze falls on the stumbling figure that comes barreling in after his beta, and it stops him cold. It feels a little like the world falls away, as ridiculously cliché as it sounds, because Stiles won't stop staring at him, and it's like he's being x-rayed. Derek can't remember the last time he felt self-conscious, shifting under Stiles's intense gaze, maybe when he was thirteen, but not anytime recently that's for certain, and the whole thing is incredibly unnerving and uncomfortable.

The way Stiles is biting his lip, the way his expression changes from familiar, stubborn indignation, then to anger, finally settling on hurt, it makes Derek's insides feel raw. It also is incredibly irritating, something that's sort of a relief, a familiar, welcome feeling.

And Stiles croaks out, "I'm sorry," and all Derek can see is the way he limps when he walks, the bone-white bandages peeking out from the sleeves of that stupid red hoodie he always wears.

Derek can see the boy drowning in guilt, the same way Derek has for what feels like forever, and it makes him feel sick because that wasn't what this was at all.

So instead Derek reaches for him, whining as he puffs hot breath into the hollow of Stiles's throat, breathing in the scent of him, so very much alive.

Derek allows himself a few moments, longer than necessary probably, finding a strange comfort in the stable, steady thrum of Stiles's pulse, though it doesn't stay that way for long, quickening in its pace in a way that makes Derek flinch, thinking it's him, that Stiles is scared of him…

But before he can step away, Stiles's arm comes up around his back and they are clinging to each other. It's a nice moment, quiet, just of the two of them, despite the audience. Someone coughs, and Derek looks up, sees that it's no longer just Peter and Isaac in the room with them. Scott is gaping at him, with a look of-something, his brow furrowed as he's trying to puzzle the whole thing out.

He's shadowed by someone unexpected, however.

And it's the Sheriff— Stiles's father, looking so much older, grayer, his face more ashen and lined than even Derek has ever seen. And he thinks of the only other time he's ever seen that look on the man's face, the night he led a boy and girl, young, yet no so young, into the back of a police car, murmuring, don't look son, not anymore as they drove away from the smoking ruin of his home, and nine bodies, crudely covered with blankets, splayed like broken dolls on the scorched leaves of the forest floor.

Derek looks into the man's eyes, and they stare back at him, and he knows now, thinks Derek. He has to understand, now.

And the man clears his throat, says, "Thank you." It's soft, but Derek hears the weight behind it.

So he nods, steps back, even though the wolf in him howls in protest, reaching again for Stiles in a way Derek doesn't yet understand.

"Take him home, he—you should take him home."

Things are better after, not necessarily easier, but certainly calmer. It takes a while for Derek to feel normal again, for the sting to leave his muscles and joints, and it's frustrating to say the least, because he isn't used to having to take time to heal. Though when he does, he feels stronger than he did before, and he knows, knows without even asking Deaton, that it is the state of his pack that is the source of it, this new-found strength.

Their bond is healing, along with Derek wounds, and like the cuts on his skin, it is a slow yet steady process. It is hard for him, letting down the walls he spent years building up, but he tries. He fixes up the house almost completely, and when Isaac moves in, when Erica and Boyd set up a room to share, it almost feels like a real home. Almost.

Even Scott and Jackson have come around more, sparring with the other betas, letting Derek teach them how to fight, how to track, how to avoid detection. He knows Jackson wants him to give Lydia the bite, hears them talk about it in hushed whispers, but Derek just can't, and even if he did, he isn't sure what would happen, if Lydia's immunity would put them all at risk.

If anything, Derek is more cautious than ever.

/

Stiles doesn't come around anymore, and even Scott doesn't seem to be seeing him much these days. When he visits Deaton, Derek doesn't ask about him, though the vet says in soothing tones that he's fine, he's healing.

Several full moons pass, and the Derek feels proud that most of his pack can control themselves without his help. Erica still struggles, and he knows it bothers her that she cannot run with the rest of them, that she still has to be chained up like an animal. On the nights when it's worst, Derek stays with her, wrapping her in his arms, even as she snarls and scratches at him.

Things get better, slowly, but they do.

/

It's the third full moon since the night Stiles was taken, and Derek feels the pull in his veins, but he doesn't show it. The others don't often realize it, that sometimes it is harder for him as a born wolf—that he cannot separate himself from the animal as easily as they can. For him, the wolf is not separate, not a thing he can shut on and off, and that it took years for him to develop the iron-clad control that he now possesses.

He has done his best to let Stiles be, doesn't even ask his betas to watch over him (though he suspects that they do, regardless). Despite the fact that every instinct claws at him, tells him to watch, care, protect this strange human boy.

And he realizes, as he finds himself outside the Stilinksi home, with the hazy yellow moon raised high over the trees that today is his birthday. It isn't a thing he often thinks about, especially after, when more years simply meant more unwanted time to mourn and grieve. He and Laura had long stopped celebrating.

And Derek, he recognizes the scent of the boy immediately—woods, something homey, spicy, tainted only slightly by the smallest stench of chemicals (the adderall, he thinks). Derek doesn't mean to scare him; he's used to moving in a way that makes little noise, if any at all, and he can't help it that his eyes automatically track every little movement of Stiles's nimble fingers, like any predator might its prey.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Stiles sputters, dropping whatever it is he's got in his palm. Derek's eyes narrow, but he still smells the thing before he sees it. And Derek scowls, his eyes narrowing as he catches an odor so naturally repulsive to his kind, mixed up so unwanted in Stiles's natural scent. Derek steps closer, his hand reaching into the boy's pocket, pulling out the source of his distaste.

It's such a tiny thing, no bigger than a cigarette, with a tip as slim and pointed as a sewing needle. A silver dart dipped in wolfsbane and hemlock.

Derek growls, the dart laid flat in his palm as he holds it in front of Stiles's face.

"Argent teaching you some nice tricks?" he asks, not even bothering to hide the venom in his voice.

And Stiles doesn't hesitate to snatch back the tiny weapon, tuck the dart safely away again. "Something tripped my mountain ash…alarms," he mumbles, "and it was Deaton, by the way. I've been learning some things, I want—no, I need to be ready, for—for next time." Stiles trails off again, his twitchy fingers tugging on his shirt, white and thin and a little too long for him.

For next time, Derek thinks. For the next time Stiles suffers because of them.

Stiles's words seep like ice into his veins, stinging as harshly as the venom in that dart would if it were to ever pierce his skin. The way that the boy talks, like he means nothing, like he's worth so little to them, it makes Derek's blood run cold and sluggish, like he's frozen in place. He doesn't understand, doesn't know how Stiles can see it that way, when it's obvious to everyone else what it means— when they hurt him like that, he must know, thinks Derek, he must know what it means…

Because that's what your enemy does in war, goes after what's most precious, what's most valued, prized above all other things.

In the pack, if Derek is brute strength, cold and hard, immovable and unfeeling as granite, Stiles is all fire and heart, and he must know, that the only reason they are whole again is because of him.

Derek's eyes flash as they follow Stiles's hands, the way they pull and tug at the hem of his shirt, and that's when Derek sees—what they've done to him, how they've marked him forever, found a way to haunt them all even after they've gone.

The sound that escape from his open mouth is a deafening, anguished cry, and Derek can't help it, he has to see, has to touch. And his own hands are shaking as they cover Stiles's, lifting the thin fabric in a slow reveal of skin, and it's all sharp, angry lines, white and glowing in the moonlight.

And he knows in his bones, sees the hard line of Stiles's mouth, that there isn't a way he can ever make this right. Even if he sucked every last bit of pain from Stiles's body, that there'd be an ache, a part of him broken that can't ever heal right.

He wants to say something, anything, but nothing comes because he doesn't know how to do this, not when any apology he offers would carry the same weightlessness as saying nothing at all.

So Derek traces the raised scar tissue, the triangles and curves of the mark, ingraining the memory in his own flesh because he knows that he doesn't ever deserve to forget what he's done to something so good and warm and perfect.

Derek, he's lost in thought as his fingertips brush over skin he's never really touched before, not really, not like this—Stiles feels cool and soothing under his own hands, underneath his own skin that runs so much hotter than a humans. The boy shivers, and Derek feels the gooseflesh that prickles underneath his palms, catching like wildfire as it trails up his arms too.

And Stiles mouth is open, his breathing quickened, his cheeks flushed, and Derek jerks his head when the boy speaks, when he hears the tremor in his voice, sees Stiles's eyes alight with confusion, not fear, not hate, but something neither of them can really place.

"What are you, god, Derek….you have to stop," and the boy's voice is quivering, choked.

Derek pulls his hand away, slow, and smooths the fabric over Stiles's stomach and he steps back, though the wolf in him screams in protest, wants things Derek doesn't even know how to begin to understand.

"I—sorry, I-"

And he thinks, with a realization that hits him as solidly as a strike across the face, that he would do whatever the boy asked of him, now, in this moment—anything.

That if Stiles told him to go away, to not come back, he would go, and he would go and never look on him again.

"I don't know—I don't understand," he says desperately, and the words come out hoarse and jumbled and Derek wishes he had never spoken at all.

"And you think I do?" Stiles says with a laughing, shaking his head. "Fucking wolves, man. Why can't anything normal ever happen to me? Why are you even here? I mean..it's me for fuck's sake. You hate me…you hate me right? I just…fuck, it's so cold and look at you, and you're not even shivering. I—I need to go inside."

For Derek, it's a relief to hear Stiles's familiar babbling, a welcome white noise that drowns out the half-formed doubts and questions that have been plaguing the alpha for months. A year ago, when Scott was first bitten, the boy's endless chatter had been nearly insufferable, so alien to him, someone who'd lived so long in almost complete silence, moving through the day-to-day as immaterial as the ghosts he'd tried his best to bury.

Maybe he should go, he thinks, looking up to see that the moon has moved to its highest point, just past midnight. He thinks of Erica and Boyd, Jackson, Peter (a problem he's yet to even ponder solving), but the thought of running tonight—it's not what he wants, not what he needs.

"Tired," he grunts, "Isaac and Scott can take over for one night."

And he watches Stiles watch him, adding, "They've been better, since…"

Though he doesn't want to add that they all know what's—who- has been missing from the equation for far too long, longer certainly than Derek has wanted.

"I'll go, if you want," he says quietly, in what he thinks are the most words he's ever said to Stiles at one time, "but I'd like to stay."

He cocks his head, listens for a moment, not hearing the tell-tale footfalls of the Sheriff's heavy boots, or the hum of the television, the man's heartbeat that tends to be just a touch out of sync on the fifth beat.

"I could even use the front door for once. It might be a nice change," he says, his tone flat, but offering Stiles a smile that's all teeth, white and gleaming.

And Stiles actually smiles back, not a full one, just a tilt upwards of soft, pink lips. "Come inside."

Derek follows Stiles wordlessly; his hands dug into the pockets of his jeans, doing is best not to trail too close, though he wants to. Consciously, he even tries to make noise when he moves just to put Stiles more at ease because he notes the subtle way the boy's shoulders shake as he walks into the house and heads up the stairs, two at a time. Derek shuts the door once he's inside the hall, it closes with a click, and he turns the lock too, just to be safe.

There aren't any lights on in the house, it's nearly pitch-black, though Derek can see fine, no real difference to his eyes than if it were broad daylight. He's never been into the main parts of the Stilinksi house before; it's comfortable here, homey, lived in, and it's been a long time since Derek felt something like that. There are a few pictures on the walls, the ones that are there, they're mostly of Stiles: a few school photographs, one of him in lacrosse gear. Noticeably, there are none of Stiles's mother, though Derek remembers seeing her in town, a slight blonde, with bright eyes like Stiles's, soft features, a thousand-watt smile.

They get to Stiles's room, and it's more cluttered than Derek remembers. It's dimly lit as well, just a desk lamp switched on, the muted glow of a reading lamp. Stiles's scent fills Derek's nostrils—it's everywhere in the room, and he's swimming in it. He feels slightly dizzy, so he crosses the room, past Stiles where the boy is still standing awkwardly by the bed like he doesn't know what to do, and slides into the armchair in the corner. He moves with an easy grace that belies his uneasiness, thankful in this case for his natural-born gifts. The boy's room is covered with books; they line several bookcases, strewn on the floor and the desk. Some of them are older, leather-bound, and there a few he recognizes from his old home, thinks that the vet must've rescued them because they still bear the acrid smell of burnt wood and ash.

His eyes fall on Stiles's bed, and he notes that the boy's scent is faintest here, like it hasn't been slept in. Derek isn't surprised, though he can't deny it worries him (although he worries a lot in Stiles's case, regardless). He can imagine Stiles, propped up at the desk, bent over the tomes, twitching restlessly, most likely sprawled over his keyboard when he finally managed to fall asleep. There's a book lying closest to Derek, resting on the windowsill, and he picks it up, running his fingers over the dusty spine, the thin pages yellowed with age. It's mostly sketches, creatures Derek remembers his father telling him about—wendigos and redcaps, will-o-the-whisps, the other things besides them that haunted the forests at night.

"You can sleep, if you want," says Derek, pressing into the back of the chair, trying his best to relax his stiff shoulders, unclench his taught muscles so he can breathe again. "I'll just read, I'm just—I need to rest. It's comfortable here…"

Stiles still hasn't moved, even though Derek's doing his best not to even glance in his direction, scared of pinning him to the wall with his eyes. Stiles's own gaze is flitting across the room, and Derek can see his eyelashes fluttering, thin and blond, as delicate as moth wings.

Derek cocks an eyebrow, his mouth falling into its characteristic hard-line scowl. Stiles doesn't look fine, any finer than Derek feels, and it's not hard to know why. But honestly, here, Derek already feels more relaxed than he has in weeks, which isn't something he cares to dissect at the moment, not at all, with the knowledge that even with the heady pulse of the moon, the wolf in him is settled here, surrounded by Stiles's calming aura.

"I won't bite," he says, smirking as he pulls off his leather jacket, unties the laces of his boots, toes them off so he's just in his socks (which is sort of funny, absurd, because he's sure without looking at Stiles's face that it boggles the boy's mind that Derek is actually a person, sort-of, who wears things as arbitrary and human as socks).

"The house is—it doesn't feel like," Derek starts, resting his hands on his thighs as he watches Stiles pointedly, how he won't look even look at him. Though he can hear the boy's heart, beating fast again, and wishes he knew how to make him calm, quiet.

"Anyway, you should try to rest, too, I know it's not—but I wouldn't let anything hurt you," he says. I won't hurt you is what he really means, as he rises out of the chair and moves so he hovers over Stiles where he sits perched on the edge of the mattress, curled in on himself like he's trying his best to turn invisible.

"Sure," Stiles mutters. "Whatever," and his thin, bony fingers are tugging at the fraying edges of the bedspread and he looks like a damned ghost to Derek.

What Stiles says, it hurts just as much (more, actually) as if he had slapped him, and Derek feels his mask slip just a little and it's irritating how frequent that's happening lately. It hurts because he can tell, even if it's not meant as an attack on him, that Stiles doesn't believe him, and he probably shouldn't, why would he?

When has Derek ever actually succeeded in protecting the things he cares about?

Derek is first to look away, because he doesn't—he's not ready for Stiles to look into his eyes and see everything that he's sure is written plain across his face. He shifts, moving slowly so Stiles can track his movements, until he's sitting next to him on the bed, a respectable distance away—even though the wolf is screaming touch, get close, close, closer.

"I'm sorry I let this happen to you," he says gruffly, and the apology sounds as stupid as he imagined it, lame and weak and just fucking meaningless.

And Stiles is laughing, laughing. "Jesus Christ, sourwolf. I mean, you literally took down the alpha pack to save me. You almost died for me. I was the fucking idiot that went crashing through the forest…looking for you… right after you'd just warned me and—" and Stiles is rambling again, biting his lip and shaking his head.

And there he goes again, always downplaying his worth, and it makes Derek furious because Derek has never hated Stiles, despite what the boy might think, but simply kept him at arm's length, distant, for this very reason.

There's no way he can escape, hide from the way Stiles's eyes rake over him, searching it seems, for a reason that Derek would do something as unreal as trading his life away for him. Derek doesn't know what he's supposed to say, how to tell him that there was never any choice, that he knew from the moment Stiles was taken from him (not away, but from him, there was never any doubt who it was meant to hurt).

He wants to reach out, offer a touch that if only Stiles was wolf, he wouldn't find unwelcome or uncomfortable. But he does, Derek knows the boy doesn't understand why Derek wants his hands on him all the time, wants Stiles to smell like Derek, belong to Derek, be Derek's.

Derek doesn't even understand it himself, how things changed so quickly, after.

"You have to know," he says, feeling his green eyes flicker with the force of his words, "that I will always come for you."

"I mean why? I'm not even part of your dumb pack. I'm just me. I'm just Stiles. Scott would have gone, the Argent…it didn't have to be you. "

The wolf in him is gleeful at the challenge, at the way Stiles stares so unabashedly, and it yearns to mark and claim. Derek's hands shake, and he cringes as he feels his claws lengthen, so he grips the blanket on Stiles's bed, bunches it in his fists in an attempt to release the tension strung rigid and taut in his forearms like a bowstring. It helps a little, but the feeling stays.

"Because you are pack, you always have been, they trust you—more than me, I don't blame them for it…" Derek says, rushed and quiet, fixated on the swell of Stiles's mouth as he bites at his own lip.

And it's not all, that doesn't even come close to the real reason, he thinks, but he doesn't know how to put into words the way he's drawn to the boy because Stiles doesn't—can't possibly feel it the way Derek does. The way the wolf in him howls to be near him, how it's been agonizing to be apart from the comfort of his scent.

"And you, you're important…to me," he murmurs vaguely. "I can't-I have to—" and he doesn't know how to explain the instinct that feels so inherently animal in its reasoning, how it feels like every hurt that Stiles suffers hurts Derek more, ten-fold.

"Things have changed, that's all I know," he says. And it is cowardly, he knows, that he can't even form the words that Stiles needs, that he won't. But it isn't right, to burden him with it, because Stiles is so young, and it's not right, even though everything in Derek screams that it is, that is has to be.

It happens so fast, Derek hardly gets the chance to process what's happening before it does, and he feels like he blinks and misses it. Stiles's hand pulls him close and Derek goes, his flesh hot, veins singing at the contact.

And then, then, Stiles lunges at him, and Derek doesn't flinch, doesn't even move as Stiles's lips press quick as lightning against his own and Derek goes still, can't react fast enough because he's so shocked at the fact that Stiles has kissed him, that Stiles wants him.

But he's gone, before Derek can even process this new information. He doesn't even need to look up to know that the expression on Stiles's face is horror, mortification, because he's already miles away from Derek, who feels the loss immediately, whose wolf feels anguished and cheated at losing what it wants most.

If Derek were cautious like he knows he should be, if Derek actually took the time to think about this, he would bury the idea because of so many reasons—too old, too dangerous, not right, not right at all.

But Derek doesn't, can't, not when he had him so close, there in his arms, for just a second even though that's all it really took.

The noise he makes is positively animalistic in its neediness, but Derek doesn't give a shit, reaches for the boy, using his brute strength to yank him into his lap before grabbing his chin and crushing their mouths together. He should be gentle, he should do a lot of things, but he's bound under the spell of Stiles's pulse that's racing because of him, because of Derek's mouth and hands all over him.

He tries not to grip his hips too hard, even though the wolf wants to replace every mark on the boy's body with one of his own, wants to cover him until the only person Stiles smells like is him, just him, wants everyone to know it, feel it.

Derek doesn't believe in God, he never has, but when Stiles touches him, it feels like the laying on of hands, absolving every sin, scraping off the layer of scar tissue, tough and horrible, that's formed over his body and his heart like an icy cage. Stiles's hands are as hot as Derek's skin, the warmth running through him like an electric current.

When he nips lightly, bites gently at Stiles's lips, whatever bond they had, once tenuous and thin, feels solid and real, shocking him like an electric current—it feels like licking a battery. Derek swallows Stiles's needy sounds, the boy pressed so close to him he can feel the angles of his ribs, his sharp hipbones, even through his clothes.

Derek wants more, wants everything, wants to pluck notes from the boy's spine like a piano, and it's terrifying how much he wants. He feels his teeth start to lengthen, feels his eyes shift and he doesn't know how this human, so much energy buzzing underneath his skin, has frayed the edges of his control, altering him so utterly.

He pulls away with a groan because he knows he needs to, looks away because he doesn't want Stiles to see him like that. But he reaches between them with his fingers, thankfully not claws, feels the heat radiating off the boy's cheeks, flushed red where all the blood's rushed to his head, and Stiles's skin is a shock paddle, and his own body thrums heavily in response with an energy and life he can't recall feeling in years.

It feels like frostbitten limbs coming in from the cold. Hurts at first, but the burn feels so good.

"Sorry, I don't-want to hurt you," he murmurs, his heart beating loud and erratic, he's sure that even Stiles's weak human ears can hear it.

"Oh my god," Stiles is panting into his ear and Derek just groans, "the only way you could fucking hurt me right now if you fucking stop. Because I would hurt you, because this is amazing and…"

When he feels Stiles's lips, feather-light, touch as soft as a bird's wing, it's like someone's got Derek's lungs in a vice and even he can't stifle the sharp intake of breath, the gasp that escapes his lips, chapped and cracked. And it's then that he realizes just how deep this boy's managed to entrench himself inside of him. That even though he wasn't really aware of it, not consciously, not at first, he's managed to burrow underneath his skin until his essence has wrapped tendrils around every inch of him, bones, muscles, nerves, even blood. The weight of something so bright trying to shine in his shadow, like a cut in his mouth that he can't stop tonguing. And now, he's the wolf in sheep's clothing and Stiles is following him blind.

His eyes don't leave the place on Stiles's face, where Derek still gripping him, the bones of his cheekbones feeling almost avian-like, sharp and hollow—fragile, and he knows he could crush them easily in his fist. But Stiles doesn't care, says you won't like he really believes it.

Derek wants to believe it, too.

So he slides his hands under Stiles's clothes, pulls the zipper of that ridiculous sweatshirt down, and underneath Stiles is just wearing a thin t-shirt, a little too big for him, the collar stretched.

And Stiles is staring at him under heavy lids, soft lashes framing his gaze, but by no means subduing its intensity. The boy is so pale, he glows in the dim lights of the room, as bright as the moon outside, and it makes sense since they are both the things that haunt him most.

So Derek grips the sleeve of Stiles's shirt and tugs; it falls, revealing the smooth expanse of Stiles's ivory curved shoulder, the long, lean line of his neck, and Derek mouth practically waters. He stalls, just for a second, but realizes he's halfway to hell already and it's not like he's going to turn back now. When he lowers his mouth to the hot skin there, he wears the air gets sucked straight out of the room because right now, Derek's sure as hell not breathing. His lips skim a trail back to the hollow of Stiles's throat, scrapes the dip there with his teeth before swirling his tongue around that pulse point, pounding determinedly, and he tastes salt and soap and grass and den and, he sucks and licks, abusing the skin there until he's certain Stiles is marked, branded.

The animal in him is howling in victory, reveling in the claim, the bruise that's sure to last for days. And all Derek can think is mine, mine, mine, finally mine.

"You're marking me, oh my god, that's so hot. I can't-" And Stiles is shivering and twitching like a livewire, Derek has to tighten his grip just to keep him upright. And suddenly he feels the force of Stiles's weight pushing him down, nails scratching at his shoulders.

e lets himself be pushed, lets Stiles scramble over him, pinning him to the mattress. Every one of his alpha instincts prickle, and he can't lie and say he doesn't panic just for a moment at the idea of submission, of letting go of an ounce of control. But Stiles's breath is coming in heavy pants, his eyes like black pools, pupils dilated wide with want and he knows that this isn't anything like that; it's not a challenge, it's desire, plain and simple, for closeness, for skin against skin.

He lets Stiles claim his mouth, opening to him, winding his hand into the strands of Stiles's hair, grown longer than it's ever been, and he tugs, scratching at his scalp with blunt nails. And just because he can, because he knows he wants it like Derek does, he rocks their hips together because he wants to hear him gasp again. Because Derek wants to give him this. He kisses him, traces the contours of his open mouth, and maps the shape of his lips until he's sure he's memorized them. He slips his hand up Stiles's spine until he arches above him, digs his fingertips into the soft flesh of his hips. Derek's touches are forceful, but controlled. For Stiles, he takes his time, lets his hands wander all over and tries his not to lose his mind when the boy is so soft and warm and perfect.

It's still terrifying, how real this is, the weight of Stiles on top of him, but he needs this, finally feels like the missing pieces, the hollow, aching parts of him are slowly being filled. He pulls back, holds Stiles's face in his hands, mesmerized by the boy's bee-stung lips, swollen and raw because of him, runs the pads of his callused fingers over his bruised mouth and bares his neck, submitting, even though it goes against everything he knows, because he….because he wants, needs Stiles to know that the trust goes both ways, that it always has.

It's still not as easy as he wants it to be, as he exposes the most vulnerable part of him, as he let's Stiles's mouth, full and pink, trace the lines of his veins, the arteries pumping, life, oxygen through his body. He lets his hands fall to his sides because he feels the bones of his fingers shift as his claws extend, so he grips the blankets again, like he did earlier, because it seemed to help, cringing as he hears the fabric rip under his ministrations

" m'sorry," he mutters brokenly, arching up unwittingly against the wet press of Stiles's tongue under his shirt. His skin feels scorched, like he's been burned, and he feels the sweat pooling on his forehead, the hammering of his heartbeat like lead in his chest, his blood spiked with want, thick and heavy.

He groans again, biting his own lip this time, and he tastes blood, metallic and sweet, his own, and it's ridiculous, he thinks, how undone he is by the simple press of the boy's mouth on his flesh, so alive. But he wants more, he thinks, than the boy can give, wants everything, wants to swallow him whole.

As fast as a blink, he flips them and he stills for a moment, his weight braced on his forearms resting on both sides of Stiles's head.

ek's mouth falls open, gaping at the boy who's so willingly laid himself bare for him—it floors him, he can't even-thinks if he shuts his eyes, looks away from Stiles's eyes, closes them, that Derek will wake up and it will all have been a dream, fleeting and errant like the wind.

Because this, this is exactly what he dreamt of that night, he knows it now, that lying on Deaton's table was moment that Stiles's soul was scratched on Derek's bones, marking him as much as the bruise that blooms like the sweetest flower across the boy's throat.

Derek's shaking, he can feel it, suspended over Stiles's body, all lithe limbs and pointed angles. The wolf basks in Stiles's blatant show of submission, in the way his pulse quickens so notably that Derek can practically see it trying to beat its way through to the other side. The boy's name slips out from Derek's mouth as he eases down, presses a little more of his bulk against Stiles's, relishing the way they slot together, like Stiles was made for this, for him.

He nuzzles into the dip of Stiles's shoulder, lapping at sliver of skin behind Stiles's ear where his scent is strongest. The taste of him is more than Derek could ever imagine, sweeter, headier than wine, than honey. And as a born wolf, he's never been drunk, but he imagines that this must be exactly what it feels like, every nerve buzzing, his vision swimming.

"You drive me crazy," he murmurs pressing the tips of his canines over Stiles's throat with the barest pressure, and the darkest parts of Derek sing at the contact, knowing how stupidly easy it would be to bite down because Stiles would make the most gorgeous wolf, so strong and perfect. But Derek would never, knows he would never ever hurt him like that, that Stiles holds on to his humanity like it's the greatest gift because it is.

Derek doesn't even try to stifle the moan that's ripped from his throat as he feels Stiles's nails, the palms of his hands warm and damp with sweat, as they skitter down his back. Derek feels his spine ripple pleasantly as he bucks into the touch, resuming his assault on the swell of Stiles's bottom lip, fucking into his mouth with his tongue, tracing seams of that stupid, sinful mouth. Any restraint he might've had is gone, out the window, and Derek grinds shamelessly into the supple curve of Stiles's hip, seeking his own release as much as Stiles's.

His touches are fearless, teetering on the edge of almost too rough, now as he hooks his thumb into the waistband of Stiles's jeans, teasing the hypersensitive skin hidden just underneath. He bites at the soft flesh of Stiles's earlobe, scraping his teeth over the boy's pebbled nipples, the middle of his chest where the most perfect blush as spread under Derek's lavish attention.

"Fuck-so gorgeous, everyone's gonna look at you, know you're mine," Derek growls, punctuating the words with another slow drag of his hips.

nd when Stiles goes still beneath him as he says those words, for a second, Derek's sure he's ruined it all, whatever this is. He panics, his mind flooding with all the ways that this could possibly be wrong. He thinks of Kate, how she'd been with him when he was just sixteen. And Stiles, he's just a kid, just seventeen and isn't what Derek doing just the same? Doesn't this make him as much a monster as the Argents claimed that him he was? He shuts his eyes under the weight of all that doubt, and when he opens them again, gazes at the boy's face, it feels like Derek has emerged from the darkest depths of an ocean filled with bad memories, has narrowly avoiding being dragged beneath by the undertow.

Stiles's breathing is labored, the bright gleam of his eyes like melted amber, honeyed mahogany; he knows that it's not anything like what Kate did to him because the boy looks so utterly desperate for whatever Derek can give him, and from the jackrabbit's pace of his pulse, it sounds like Stiles's heart is ready to beat itself out.

And he's so quiet, which Derek never imagined Stiles to be, especially in a situation like this. He'd thought Stiles would be running his mouth off non-stop, because that's how he seems to react to everything, like talking is the only way he can handle what gets thrown to him day-to-day.

But so far, Derek's only heard muted sounds, needy, wanton little moans and gasps that catch in the hollow parts of his throat. Derek, who never speaks if he can help it, is the one who can't stop murmuring nonsense into the soft expanse of Stiles's belly, his neck, because he wants to brand him with not only his teeth, but his words, hoping they'll stay just as long beneath the skin as the bruises on top of them.

"What do you want, tell me, I want you-whatever you need, I want to give it to you, just let me-" he whispers, his fingers fiddling with the buttons on Stiles's jeans. Derek already knows what he wants, what the wolf wants—Stiles spread open and vulnerable underneath him, naked and begging for his touch

And Stiles laughs, grinning into Derek's mouth. "I want you, you idiot. I fucking want you."

That's everything Derek needs to continue, the frantic pleas spilling from Stiles's lips, consenting wholly to Derek's will. Groaning at the way Stiles arches for him, he works quickly with practiced fingers, tugging Stiles's jeans off, leaving them in a crumpled heap on the floor, followed shortly by the boy's underwear until Stiles is just there, laid out like an offering to the gods, to him, and it's so close to being too much. Derek's eyes rake over the white ivory of uncovered skin, and his pupils feel blown wide, so dilated, his vision so painfully enhanced that the way the beams of moonlight play on they boy's bare flesh is as hypnotizing to him as the moon itself as it dapples across the expanse of him, glittering like the most precious of jewels.

He can see every goosebump, the hair like soft down all over him, the arousal that hangs over them both like hazy fog. Derek takes several steeling breaths to steady himself, reaches down to unzip his own pants, just freeing himself enough that the ache, the pain of wanting, doesn't kill him. He can't help stroking himself a few times, either, just because the way Stiles is naked, bare for him, makes him pulse, makes him crave.

Because he doesn't know how this can be real, all for him. Can't believe that this is what was hidden, underneath the baggy, shapeless clothes, underneath that shell of restless, buzzing energy, the clumsiness Stiles hides behind like a shield. But he's glad, he thinks, with a possessive jolt of noise, that no one else can tell, can see it, because if they all knew what was there, under the surface, who wouldn't want to devour the boy?

Derek kneels between the boy's legs, reaching underneath the bends of his knees to pull him close so that he can run his palms over everywhere, all of him. And yeah, it's pretty wolfish, what he does next, scraping the scratch of stubble over the bow of Stiles's foot, then his calves, the fleshy inside of his thighs just so he's sure to smell like Derek's everywhere. He scrapes his rough tongue over the fine bones of Stiles's ankle, kittenish licks all the way up the lean lines of his legs. Derek never knew it was possible for someone to blush with their entire body, the flush spreading hotly all the way to the tips of Stiles's toes, blood humming for it.

Or, he thinks, how Stiles has freckles everywhere, even on his thighs, the arc of his hipbones. Someday Derek will count them all, taste every last one with teeth and tongue, but the way Stiles thrashes under his hands, now isn't the time when they're both so close to breaking.

He digs his nails into the glowing stretch of Stiles's flanks, nuzzling into his groin where Stiles's scent is so rich, an alluring bouquet of sweat and salt and longing. Finally, he touches where Stiles needs it most, gathering the moisture at the tip of him with his thumb, wrapping his hand over the swelled flesh. Derek licks his lips, because it's mouthwatering, the sight of him, and he follows with the trace of his mouth, licking a heated stripe over his length before swallowing him down, relishing at the weight, thick and soft as velvet.

He wants to hear Stiles come apart, wants to see it, wants to burn it into his memory like cauterizing a wound.

nd Derek, he's fine, he's under control—really, as he holds Stiles between his lips, his palm a steadying weight in the dip of Stiles's bellybutton. But the boy grabs onto his hair, pulls hard, fingertips a delicious grate against his skull and Derek can't help it—the pace of it all becomes brutal as Derek takes him down so fully, utterly, that the boy is essentially fucking up into his mouth, but it's okay because Derek wants it, needs it. It's a sharp contrast to the gentle, reassuring massage of one hand on the concave of his hips.

He looks up, moans as he takes in the sight of Stiles, with his mouth thrown open, a perfect 'o', his lips shiny and abused, so blood red and completely indecent. It's not like Derek has had a steady stream of romantic partners, and never any relationships, not since Kate, not since his world collapsed. And he's seen people in all matter of wanton displays, girls who moaned so juvenilely, loud enough to make his ears ring painfully, men that swore like sailors, but nothing compares to this skinny teenager with a face that's so strangely beautiful. Nothing. And when Stiles cries out Derek's name, he thinks, no, knows, that he could come just from this, just from watching Stiles fall so gorgeously apart underneath his hands,

Derek sees him bite his own lips, and he's drawn immediately forward, pulls off with an obscene pop that, if Derek had any shame whatsoever, might've made him blush. The grip he has on Stiles's chin is bruising, and the thought thrills him, a perfect replica of the pads of his fingertips on Stiles's cheekbones. So blatantly vulgar in its display, leaving no doubt as to what caused it. He attacks Stiles's mouth, not really even a kiss, just a sloppy, hot press of teeth and tongue as he continues to stroke him.

"Let go, let me—fuck, let me see it," he hisses, his voice so course like gravel it doesn't even sound remotely human.

He smells the blood before he feels it, a flash of pain (yet, not pain, not really, just feeling) and it makes him whimper because the sparks that tickle up his spine, like they do every time he heals, hits him deep in the pit of his stomach, makes him sweat, makes him moan, and he gasps into Stiles open mouth, clinging to him.

And then he feels it, the way Stiles goes rigid in his arms, throws his head back like he's looking to the sky, and Derek thinks yes, yes, yes, as his grip tightens, forcing Stiles to look right at him because there's no way he's missing this, no way. Stiles's release comes in ribbons, spilling over Derek's hands, Stiles's chest, and it's gorgeous, fucking gorgeous, and Derek doesn't even hesitate, ducking down, lapping at it with his tongue, sucking it off his fingers, because the scent is so bitingly Stiles it makes the wolf in him wail.

He works his way back up to Stiles's chest, his neck, pressing lips wherever they happen to fall—the bridge of Stiles's nose, the slight furrow in his brow, his eyelids, his ears, ending with kiss on the boy's forehead so gentle and sweet, it's more than Derek ever thought he could give anyone. His hands come up behind Stiles, resting at his lower back, fingertips playing in the divot in between his hips.

Derek is still hard, but he barely notices, so enraptured by the blissful, fucked out glaze that's fallen over Stiles's face, his eyelids heavy over darkened eyes-almost black.

And Derek thinks, in that moment, I love you, I do but he can't say it, not yet, not when it still catches in his mouth, still makes him choke. And he hasn't cried in so long, didn't even when he buried Laura, when he stood over her open grave and saw her lying there, stiff and motionless and gone. Nothing came then. But now, he feels his vision cloud, and there's a lump in his throat, though it doesn't feel like sadness. It feels like everything.

And he would never ask Stiles to do anything for him, but he doesn't get a chance to even entertain the idea of simply taking care of it himself because the boy is touching him, soft, cool fingers surrounding him whole and he grunts, pressing into the hand that reaches for him. And the teenager's words are tinged with tentative uncertainty, honestly like Derek would, could ever say no when Stiles looks like that, looks at Derek like he isn't as broken and fucked up as he feels.

"You are-" and Derek tries so hard to find the words to say what he wants to but he can't, he feels too much, as he juts his hips frantically, mumbling quietly into Stiles's hip, gripping the boy so hard like he's afraid he'll let go because he is, it's what he's always afraid of. That someone will look inside and figure out he's rotten, ugly and twisted in side like charred wood.

There's nothing more he can do than just fall into the touch, letting Stiles bear the brunt of his weight as he burrows deeper into the crook of Stiles's shoulder, his breathing heavy and labored. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut because he knows without opening them that he's shifted and he doesn't want to see the world as an alpha now, tinged an angry crimson, he just wants this—the silk touch of Stiles's hands on him.

His release hits him with all the subtlety of a bullet, and Derek barely has time to react as he frantically turns his head away from the boy, his fangs sharp and deadly as razors as he snaps his jaw, aching for something to bite, something that isn't Stile, because it can't be. He settles on his own wrist, groaning at the sweet pleasure-pain of piercing of his body's own thick flesh. He feels hot blood, metallic and sweet, spurt freely from the wound, and he winces, looking down in awe as the gash flickers and shrinks until it's nothing more than a pinprick of silver-white scar tissue, like it didn't happen at all.

His heart is still pounding in his chest, and he's sure Stiles can see it, feel it too, as every muscle in his body goes boneless and lax. And he isn't sure how this has happened, how the hyper-vigilante control he works so fiercely to maintain could be unraveled at the slightest touch from this boy so young, so human. The way Derek feels, the way his emotions are so real, bubbling so close to the surface, he feels like he did when he was thirteen, so erratic, a slave to instinct and desire. He's still shuddering and shaking from his climax, still feels it humming like bees in his veins. And he's so tired, drowsy, drunk on the high of so much bliss all at once. He wants nothing more than to curl around Stiles, nest together in a pile of blankets, to wake up with the warm, secret knowledge that he has found his other,

His Mate.


	2. Chapter 2

That's the word that comes to mind, and he'd never thought it was a real thing before, never thought there would ever be a person who could shoulder that burden, who he'd want to.

But he recognizes the signs now, the way Stiles scent is rich and comforting, like den, like the promise of life and future.

It's too much to think about right now, too much to analyze and worry over right now, so he just manhandles Stiles until the bend of Stiles's spine is flush against Derek's chest, so he can mouth at the back of Stiles's neck.

For Derek, the drift off to sleep is the easiest he's ever had, blanketed by the warm of heat of the body in his arms, the cloudy tendrils of Stiles's scent like the air after a storm. He feels calm, settled, completely at ease in way he hasn't since the day he stumbled onto Laura's corpse. Since Peter came back from the dead, twice, since all of it. His slumber is dreamless, so deep and utterly senseless that when he wakes up, his bones feel like lead, like he's filled with concrete.

He doesn't open his eyes, can hear without doing so, that Stiles is hurriedly showering and dressing, a whirlwind of kinetic energy. Derek grins into his arm, burrows closer into the feathered pillow that still smells like soap and sweat and Stiles. He wants to whine, pout, grab the boy by his hips and throw him back onto the bed, keep him there, squirming and bucking under his hands. But last night was cushioned by the glow of moonlight, an empty house, and it's morning, and Derek has no illusions that under the harsh glare of daylight, it won't be as easy, it won't be like that always.

But he wants, and that doesn't just go away.

Derek has never been one to laze around in bed, and without Stiles lying next to him, he feels silly and stupid in Stiles's bedroom. Without the slightest bit of noise, he creeps out from underneath the blankets, gathering the soiled blankets and sheets in his arms (and maybe Derek smells them with a satisfied growl, but he's alone, and there are no witnesses) and deposits them into the basket he finds in Stiles's bathroom.

He stills suddenly, hearing the stirrings of the Sherriff's waking breaths, a rustle of a jacket thrown onto the ground, and footfalls heading in the direction of the bedroom. In a second he's across the room, leaping over the windowsill with practiced grace, landing on his feet with the faintest thud and the crackle of dead leaves.

/

When he bursts through the door of the new house, he's not expecting anyone to be there. He's never sure where Peter goes, but he doesn't spend much time around—and Derek's warned him enough to stay away—from the school, from Lydia, to abandon the strange, sick satisfaction that he gets from sniffing around Mrs. McCall.

He's not sure it works, but there's nothing Derek can do short of killing him, which he imagines he'll have to do someday, but he's not yet ready to have the blood of his family under his nails again.

But Peter surprises him, descending grandly down the rickety staircase like veritably royalty, wearing a smirk that Derek already wants to claw off of him. But when Peter gets close, his mischievous grin turns sour, he sniffs the air, sniffs Derek, and blanches visibly.

"You stink—you should take a shower, wash that human stench off of you," the man spits. "Smells like weakness."

At that, Derek snarls viciously, snapping at his neck, to which Peter nods, backing off with a cock of an eyebrow and another scowl.

"Like 'em young, don't you, like her?"

And Derek wants to roar, to feel Peter's spine snap under his fingers, but he thinks of Stiles, what they shared, and the memories sooth him, like balm on a burn.

" You don't know anything," he murmurs, and he says it sadly, pityingly, because it's true.

/

Deaton is not an unobservant man—in fact, just the opposite, as it's his job, especially with the Hale pack as he'd once promised so long ago, to watch out for the health of the bonds that form between weres (and others). So, to say the least, he is remarkably unsurprised when the Stilinksi boy finally comes around, a frantic, wild look in his eyes, his arms flapping wildly like a flightless bird trying to lift itself into the air.

He tries not to smile, because it's obvious what he's here for, the expression on his face clearly saying, advise me, wise advising man!

But before the man even gets a chance to speak, to tell Stiles to calm down long enough to actually take a few breaths so he can make coherent sense, the words come spilling out of him and there's really nothing he can do but let the boy vent, sitting back with his arms crossed until he's finished.

And it's nothing unusual, just exactly what he suspected would happen the minute he saw Derek Hale so fiercely determined to rescue the young man, and it was satisfying, seeing that finally Derek was willing to accept his role fully and completely, to finally recognize that as Alpha, his job is not simply to conquer, to demand obedience, but to repay it in kind with self-sacrifice, with humbleness. This, he thinks, is the spark it took to ignite the fire underneath the man, to take the blinders off so Derek could finally see what had been waiting in front of him all along.

"Stiles, listen to me. For werewolves, it's not the physical that matters, not when it comes to finding a mate, finding a match. In an alpha, especially, it desires strength, loyalty—not obedience—compassion, devotion, everything, it seems, that Derek sees in you."

And he's not wrong, thinks Deaton, as the minute Scott had brought this boy to him, with bumbling speech and clumsy steps (not to mention one of the sharpest minds he'd seen in many years), he could tell that Stiles was more important than perhaps they all could've imagined. Not just a spark, but a fire, that could be, and surely was the very thing to revive Derek's dying, dwindling pack. To heal the cracks wrought so deeply by so many years of mistrust and betrayal.

"Will you refuse him?" he wonders aloud. And it's not asked with malice, suspicion, or judgment. Certainly, in the end, it is the boy's choice, and Derek will no doubt respect it, even if it may destroy him. With a mate, Derek will be more powerful than he could ever possibly imagine, with Stiles by his side, it will make him faster, stronger, more deadly, certainly—but it will also make him cautious, more pragmatic, able to show a tenderness to his pack that had been walled up previously by so much loss.

And Stiles, Stiles is just standing there, mouth agape. "I don't know—I don't understand, I can't even decide on a favorite color half the time—"

"It's red," Deaton interjects, smirking, and it's infuriating to Stiles, like Deaton somehow knows, like it was all just some cosmic joke that everyone else in the entire fucking world was in on and he's just finally got it. And Deaton just shakes his head, "If it's here now, it's always been there. And part of you has always known."

"Bullshit," Stiles says, and he's practically hyperventilating right now, but he goes on, "I mean, I think I always suspected I was kinda gay…I'm not that surprised but—"

"Gender is irrelevant to the mating bond," Deaton says.

And at that, he just can't even process anymore, feels like his mind is undergoing a forced reboot, and he follows his body's first instinct: run. Stiles launches himself up from the chair he's been perched in, taking off for the door like a shot. He knows he has things to do yet, things to learn, but he can't stay here, not now. "I'm sorry, I just can't- I have to- " He needs time, needs to be alone, needs to sort out his own head. So he leaves Deaton behind, climbs in the Jeep and just drives, into the reserve but away from the pack's den, out until there are trees and earth and sky around him and even then he can't focus, because it seems like just being freaking outside makes him think of Derek, and he just can't.

The boy leaps out of his chair like a rocket, before Deaton can even raise a hand to try and stop him. The look in Stiles's eyes is all confusion and fear of everything he doesn't understand, and he skitters away like a deer in the headlights with barely a glance back. As the door slams shut with a resounding crash, Deaton sighs, rubbing his hands over tired eyes. While it's neither an unwarranted nor unanticipated reaction (after all, being told you are something so huge and finite as someone's other half, it's not easy to take, and there's really no delicate way to put it), it signifies to the doctor that there's a long and arduous road ahead of them, and the transition will mean growing pains for everyone, himself included.

He considers calling Derek, but it might be best, he thinks, for him to stay away from the boy while everyone's feelings are sorted out. It seems a little like the conditions are stacking up dangerously, like there's drought coming on, thirsty ground, cracking air, and something's opening the flood gates to a forest fire of an enormous magnitude. And if it somehow strikes, Deaton isn't sure they (or specifically, Derek) can recover from this one.

/

Peter's face as Derek speaks, it's like he's been slapped, and the answering snarl makes Derek's skin crawl because it's so pained and desperate with fragility. Apparently, he's hit a nerve.

And Derek's just about to speak, but the door to the house is thrown open, and Derek knows without looking by recognizing the scents—sandalwood and cotton, Astroturf and antiseptic—not to mention the scrambling footfalls about as inconspicuous as a stampede of elephants, that it's Scott and Isaac. When he turns, he sees Isaac tugging anxiously at Scott's sweatshirt sleeve, a river of soothing murmurs spilling out of his mouth, the blonde wolf's lips barely moving as he tries his best to calm the older boy down. Scott is all frenzied resentment, his shoulders draw tight, ramrod straight, his chest puffed up with all the faux-bravado he can muster.

Derek hisses under his breath, already steeling himself for the fight that's sure to break out, but before Scott even gets a chance to start grilling him for, Derek's sure, a number of things, Derek's vision explodes in a sea of white dots that pop like firecracker, and he doubles over, thrown off-kilter by the sudden partial blindness.

Something in his chest feels like it's being crumpled by an invisible fist trying to pop his lungs like balloons. He feels like he's dying, his eyes watering as he gasps for breath, feeling an ocean of panic crash over him, panic, he realizes, that isn't his own.

"Fucking Christ-"he spits out, his hands gripping the guard rail on the porch, the wood splintering under his drawn-out-claws.

Within seconds, Isaac is on him, whimpering steadily under his breath as Derek's knees buckle and the younger wolf catches him, shouldering the brunt of his dead weight as they're both lowered to the floor. And in Isaac's arms, Derek's thrashing violent, chasing the breath he can't quite seem to catch, his extremities tingling and numb from a steadying lack of oxygen. His claws catch painfully on slivers of rotten wood as he slides them over the floor with a screech akin to the horrible wail of nails pressing down on a chalkboard. Behind him, Peter winces.

"What's happening to him?" Isaac asks through gritted teeth, desperately searching Derek's face for some kind of clue, some kind of reasoning behind what's happening. But when he sniffs the air around him, he doesn't find any injuries, and turns helplessly to Scott for any kind of answer.

Scott shakes his head, kneeling in front of the alpha, his palms pressing down on either side of Derek's neck.

Derek tries to speak but he can't, his tongue lying fat and useless in his mouth, as tries to choke out not me, it's not me, and behind him Isaac is crowding Peter into a corner with an accusatory snarl and Derek is dizzy, so dizzy.

Something in Scott's features ease into clear recognition, as his hands find Derek's pulse, and he takes in the alpha's desperate gasps for air.

"It's a panic attack, isn't it?" he asks low and fierce, to which Derek can only nod, because the feeling of dread crushing him is like someone's doing a dance on his chest, with shoes and bells on. "Yeah, yeah, Stiles used to get these all the time, especially after his mom died. My mom taught me how to—"

Isaac makes another frantic noise, waving his palms as if to say fine, okay, get on with it! (Which Derek is grateful for, to say the least).

"Right," says Scott, shaking his head as if he's clearing dust out of there. "Okay, first you have to take a deep breath, and hold it as long as you can, yeah, like that—"

And Derek thinks it's absurd, holding his breath when he can't even find it in the first place, but he's not doing this for himself anyway, not really, trying instead to focus all of his energy on stopping the onslaught of terror, like maybe it'll somehow make it easier for Stiles, wherever the stupid kid is, probably freaking out for no reason, and jesus, Derek's mind won't quit and he wonders, briefly, if this is what Stiles feels like all the time…

Because holy fuck

"And then you've got to take these breathes, in and out, four seconds in, four seconds out, focus on my voice—Stiles said that helped sometimes," and Scott's voice is kind of like fuzzy radio frequency in the back of Derek's head as he finally feels the knots in his chest start to untangle, the only thing going through his mind some form of the words 'Stiles', and 'breathe', and 'okay.'

And when he finally feels oxygen, sweet and rich in his throat, he growls, examining the blackened blood crusting his nails where wood splinters split his skin wind open.

"Stiles used to get these?" Derek finally gasps. "Jesus Christ, that—god dammit."

Well.

Shit.

When everything is calmer, when the painful buzzing in Derek's brain finally quiets, he stands, a little shaky, like a newborn colt testing out its legs for the first time. Isaac reaches for him, but Derek shakes the beta off with a gentle push of his fingers.

"I'm fine," he says, gentle, yet firm. And he knows he is, now, and that somewhere Stiles is fine too.

"But—Derek," says Isaac, his eyes darting across the alpha's face. "You've, I mean, you fought the kanima, and hunters, and you've almost died like a million times and I've never seen you—"

I've never seen you weak, is what Derek knows he means, but Isaac continues to speak, adding— "You don't get panic attacks. You don't—"

"But Stiles does," Scott says lowly. And when Derek turns, there's a static crackling in the air, and Scott's eyes shift cornflower yellow, and Derek's flash red in return.

"Derek," says Scott, stepping closer. "Derek, what did you do?"

"Nothing, I didn't do anything. I didn't mean for this to happen," Derek starts, and the wolf in him yowls in protest, a ominous voice that whispers devils in his ear, says that he shouldn't have to explain anything, that it's his right as an alpha to take and take without justifying it. It's the part of him that wants to see Scott bend his knee and show his throat, be the wolf he was always meant to be.

But Derek knows that Scott feels like Stiles belongs to him. That if they were to draw the pack lines, here and now, the boy would still think it would be him and Stiles on the other side, against the world like always.

Derek wonders if this is still true.

In the midst of this standoff, two more cars roll up, spitting gravel across the road- Boyd's rattling pickup, and Jackson's douchey Porsche. Derek assumes they felt him panicking, and they're all here to make sure he's still alive and breathing. It's almost suffocating, and Derek wishes with every fiber of his being that they'd all just leave him alone.

And Derek, he's not stupid. He knows this is a problem, that this connection, whatever it means, it's not a good thing. It's dangerous, maybe the worst possible thing for all of them—a weakness that can be exploited and abused. Anything that can knock him on his feet like that, it can't be right, it can't be...

And Derek, yeah, he feels Stiles before he even sees him, which again is more glaring evidence that something pretty fucked up and weird is going on between them. And even as the boy comes into view, hunched and rigid like a board, clearly angry—furious, more like it—Derek's wolf is positively giddy at the sight of him. And it's a swirling, stifling, disorienting mix-up of emotions as the alpha feels not only his own joy at the welcome presence of matemineyesmine,, but also the sudden rush of frustration and anger that pours into him straight from the source.

There's a hush that seems to catch and infect as Stiles comes up the steps, his hands stuffed in his pockets, and Derek digs his heels into the ground to keep from automatically reaching for him. It's not even really like he gets a chance to either, because Scott is suddenly lurching toward him. Isaac and Boyd both go after the boy with identical snarls of concern, but it's not necessary, as Derek strikes his arm out to catch across Scott's sternum, and with a resounding crack, Derek has the boy pinned under the point of his elbow, bent gracefully on one knee, his back a perfect bow as he looks up to catch his eyes on the edge of a bruise peeking out above Stiles's collar.

Behind him, Peter clears his throat awkwardly.

"Well, now that we've all gotten to witness another shining example of Scott's poor impulse control, I think we should all just go ahead and address the er—elephant in the room, I believe the expression is?"

Derek rolls his eyes, but rises to his feet, brushing imaginary particles of dust off the front of his jeans, his arms crossed as he bears himself up to full height.

"Besides, this is a happy occasion," Peter sing-songs, throwing an arm around Derek's shoulders, to which Derek flinches visibly.

"Don't," growls Derek, his expression dark. He turns to Stiles, whose exasperated words are clue enough that this is certainly not the way either of them wanted this situation to play out.

"We'll go to Deaton, figure this out—figure out what's wrong," he says, doing his best to sound like he actually has any idea that what he's saying is even true, which he doesn't, of course he doesn't, because it's not like he had a lot of time with his parents to learn about all of this—this stuff.

"No need for a lovers' spat, you two" Peter says toothily, "Perfectly normal at the commencement of the bonding, it'll all sort itself out nicely."

The response to this, of course, is immediate, with everyone all talking and shouting at once and it's impossible to even—jesus.

And when Stiles voice cuts clear through the din, yelling at them all to just shut the hell up for a second so he can think, Derek feels both relief, and a strange sense of pride in seeing that immediately the betas all seem to fall in line at his order. The alpha nods, agree with a quiet, "Thank you," as he motions for the rest of the pack to either make their way inside the house, or get out altogether. Isaac, Erica, and Boyd head up the steps, Scott dragging his heels behind them, looking glum and not a little put-out by the whole thing.

Jackson feints like he's going to head back for his car, but Lydia hisses and yanks him towards the doorway, flashing an entirely-too-pleased-with-herself grin in Stiles's direction before shutting the door behind them with a loud, clamoring sound.

Peter makes no motions to move, and Derek glares at him.

The older wolf has the audacity to look scandalized, scoffing, "Hey, I'm the one with valuable information here. I can help you out, surly nephew of mine."

"Just go inside. Make sure they don't kill each other."

Peter grumbles something about babysitting being a job for the hired help, but Derek is no longer listening to him.

/

The werewolf stands awkwardly across from the boy, hyper aware of every movement Stiles makes—every flicker of uncertainty that plays across the boy's delicate features, his cheekbones carved into an expression of clear distaste.

"I didn't know this would happen," Derek says quietly, and it's the truth. Honestly, he knows about as much as Stiles does when it comes to the more...sensitive topics concerning werewolf lore. It would have fallen to his parents to tell him about that, and Derek hadn't exactly been at the age where it was pertinent, and by the time he was, it was already far too late.

And Stiles, his eyes are blazing, and he looks completely lost, so confused, because he is, because of course he doesn't understand. He's human, for Christ's sake. "This? You mean us? You mean the fucking fact that I felt you—you made me breathe again, I was going to pass out, I always do—I wasn't in control of my own lungs."

"Don't be childish," Derek grits out, taking in Stiles's defensive posturing, the way his mouth is set in a hard pout, the way he's staring at Derek like it's all his fault (even though, the wolf supposes, it sort of is). But he didn't choose this, any more than if he woken up one morning and decided, 'hey I think I'll pick a teenager for a mate, that'll probably be a good idea, nothing to weird can come of that…'

Yeah, fat chance.

And it isn't like Derek did some kind of ritual, said some magic words, it all just…sort of happened.

"This—whatever we are, I didn't know that my-that being with you, would do that—link us, whatever this is, whatever that was," and he looks right at Stiles, his own nails digging painfully into his thighs because he doesn't quite know what to do with his hands, and he can't decide if the prickles of irritation he feels are his own, or if they're Stiles's feelings and it's incredibly awkward and unsettling and kind of horrible.

But also kind of not, if he doesn't think about it too hard, because for once in his life, Derek doesn't feel quite so alone with himself.

Judging from Stiles's anger, from the feelings of terror and revulsion he's doing such a poor job of hiding, he doesn't feel the same way.

It makes Derek feel sick, with himself, with what he's done.

"Listen, I take it all back then, is that what you want to hear? Get out, go home, you don't want to be here, you don't want this, so I take it all back," he says fiercely.

"I 'release' you, 'unchoose' you, fine. And if that doesn't work, we'll get someone to fix it. You won't have to be stuck with me a minute longer than you have to be."

"That's not how it works," Says Stiles, shaking his head, his feet tapping restlessly in the dirt. "That's not what this is—this is magic. This is old. Sacred You're like the worst werewolf ever, I swear to god."

Derek knows just as well as Stiles that standing here sniping at each other isn't helping, of course it isn't, but they're both so irritated and frustrated (not just by each other, but by all of it) that talking rationally has sort of gone out the window. And, yeah, Derek doesn't really know anything about any of this, and the fact that Stiles rubs it in his face like doesn't make the fact any easier for him to swallow.

It's pretty much something that's become unbearably clear to him—that he's pretty much the worst, most unqualified alpha on the planet and this whole mess isn't stacking any points up in his favor.

Not to mention that the way that Stiles looks at him like that, it's exactly the way Laura used to whenever she was annoyed with him, and it makes him ache in all the worst places because even Derek's not so much of a self-flagellator that he blames himself entirely for not knowing what this means, how to undo it, what blood bonds like this even entail.

Because not even Laura got a chance to—before.

And Stiles won't stop feeling the marks on his neck, won't stop rubbing at them, which is exasperating in the fiercest of ways if only because it reminds Derek that despite how frustrated and unhappy with the situation he is at this moment, he still wants Stiles. And every touch reminds him of that, takes him right back into the seconds where Stiles was writhing underneath him.

"Stop that," Derek grumbles, grabbing Stiles's wrist like one might a child who's been caught touching something he's been explicitly warned not to.

"Let go of me," is all Stiles says, soft, hollow.

"Let go of me."

The words echo in Derek's ears like the most chilling of sounds , and he recoils immediately, grip loosening on Stiles's wrist like he's been cut with a blade. Which, Derek thinks, that's sort of what it feels like, a hot, stinging edge of a knife, like the pricks of the alpha packs' claws in his side. He feels gutted.

He looks away to settle himself, to throw up the mask he was sure he wouldn't need with Stiles, though he supposes he was all wrong about that, in every possible way, he was wrong about that. The blood in his veins feels frozen, and his gaze is steeled and impassive when he turns back, letting it fall on the Stiles's face again. He finds he doesn't quite know what to say, staring into the wide, frightened eyes of this boy.

"Go see Deaton, find out how to sever the bond," Derek says finally, and his words are quiet, like every one pains him because it does. It hurts more than any wound he's ever endured. Inside, his wolf howls in protest, thrashing and beating against the walls of his skin until Derek thinks he'll go mad from it.

"I won't touch you again."

/

Peter steps into the clearing when the sun is just beginning to set, smudges of yellow and brassy orange mixed with shadow, and it's all very Hitchcockian, he thinks, very spooky-scary, as the wind whistles through the bare branches of winter-dead trees.

Really, it was getting all B-horror movie up in this bitch.

"Here, alpha-pack, here boys!" Peter whistles theatrically, and he claps his hands for added effect, crossing his arms defiantly as two figures finally emerge—an older man, around Peter's own age (or appearing so, at least), and a young woman, their presence made known only by the sharp, crackling sounds of twigs snapping under their leather boots as they step toward him.

"We didn't think you'd actually show," the younger one says snottily. She's willow-thin, with long hair the color of dirty dishwater, and a scrunched face, with impish eyes and an upturned nose.

"Well, you know what I say—always keep my promises—no, I never say that, that's why I'm here," Peter says, grinning.

The older man's face remains blank and impassive. "Yes, I'd imagine so. Honesty is not usually a trait held by those willing to let their own family be slaughtered by another."

Blondie makes a disgusted noise, and Peter winks. "Well, us Hales like to put the "funk" in dysfunction, know what I mean?"

"So you wish to help us get our retribution?" says the man.

"If by that you mean I get to watch you tear my sniveling nephew limb from limb, then by all means, I say go for it boys. C'est la vie, bon chance, as they say in France."

The older man's eyes are a harvest-moon yellow, marked by deep, black pupils, and at that, he smiles complacently, revealing a mouthful of flashing white teeth. He has a scar, Peter notes, white and shiny with age, which pulls at the side of his mouth, giving him a permanently warped grin.

"As long as," Peter adds slyly. "I get what we discussed."

"Yes," murmurs the man, "Yes, I think that can be arranged."

/

Derek doesn't even watch Stiles go, just turns to head back into the house, leaving the others standing there huddled like sheep on the porch. Even Jackson doesn't sneer as Derek pushes past, ducking their attempts to comfort him, as this isn't something a few simple, reassuring touches can heal. Not when this cuts so much deeper than that.

In the days that follow, Derek never tells the wolves explicitly to leave him alone, to get out, but eventually, they start to keep their distance, if only to get a reprieve from the stifling gloom that's settled like dust in the air of the den. And this is fine with Derek, because though he is never outright cruel, hardly raises his voice to them, he is apathetic and listless, flinching away from their fruitless attempts to engage him. Eventually, they stop trying, even Isaac, who has taken instead to following Scott around like a second shadow.

The days become weeks, and the season starts to change again—he can smell it, the wind losing some of its bitter bite as spring approaches, and the ground thaws. Thankfully, this means most of his pack becomes busy with the demands of school, and Derek does not have to worry about them hanging around with Peter.

Most days it feels like he's going insane, with the knowledge that he isn't fully alone in his own head. Sometimes he is hit with strange rushes of anger, despair, that aren't his own, and he struggles to bury them in the back of his mind. He gets headaches, has an aching hollow feeling in his chest that never quite goes away.

Derek feels him like he thinks an amputee might feel a phantom limb—an empty space that throbs and itches, and no matter what he does, how much he howls and bites, the wolf can't get relief.

/

He only goes to Deaton once, after a week of sleepless nights, begging him to do something, anything, because the nights are the worst, when he can't shut anything out, and he tosses and turns, wakes up more exhausted and vacant than when he falls asleep.

But the vet does nothing, only shakes his head, tells him in soft, pitying tones that there's nothing to do, that to break a bond like this, the damage to their souls would be irreparable.

Derek leaves with the taste of mountain ash in his mouth, an aching hand where he punched clean through the drywall in Deaton's office.

/

After that, there is only one person to turn to, though it fills him with disgust, to go crawling to him, weak and helpless. But Peter does not seem surprised when Derek finally comes to him. Only gives him a watery smile, tells him, "Find an anchor, hold on to one thing, block everything else out. Let it consume you. It's the only way."

So Derek chooses anger. Lets it leech into his bones like black poison, until every inch of him is infected with a rage that he can't shake. Not at Stiles, not really, but at everything, at himself. He lets himself choke on it, swallowing it like black smoke. It feels it, toxic, oozing out of his every pore.

Instead of spending his nights lying in cold sweat, he drives, flying down the dusty back roads outside of town in the camaro, white-knuckling the gearshift, grinding the gas pedal down as he makes turns that would scare the shit out of even the most reckless of adrenaline junkies.

He stops at every seedy, shithole bar, tossing back drinks that he can't even feel, but relishing the burn as the liquor slides down his throat. Sometimes women approach him, sometimes men, their eyes dead and vacant, looking at him like he might be able to do something about it, but the idea of that, it's actually repulsive, makes him feel physically ill.

What he really wants is a fight, wants to feel bones crack under his knuckles, wants to smell the iron-bite of somebody else's blood, somebody he doesn't care about…

Someone he doesn't love.

But even in the most fucked up places, where the skinheads and the junkies hang around outside just waiting to mess someone up, nobody approaches him. Derek thinks it's probably something in his eyes, something so wild and animal that even their weak human instincts rise in response, whispering in their ears to stay away.

It's probably better that way.

/

When they come for him, he doesn't see it, blinded by so much that he doesn't even feel it, the panic of the pack as they are snatched, one by one, from their homes, from the school.

The dart hits him from behind, he thinks, jabbed deep into his spinal cord, paralyzing him like the kanima's venom. Right before he blacks out, loses consciousness, he's aware that his last thought is a sliver of hope that maybe he won't wake up at all.

But he does, and when he does, he knows. Derek is fully cognizant of where he is, his whole body recoiling from the unnatural, familiar chill of death and decay. Whatever they jabbed him with, it makes his muscles burn and his joints ache like he's been stung by a hundred bees. The floor is like ice under his cheek, and when he finally pulls himself upright, he feels the sharp, stabbing pains in his ribs, around his neck, and his wrists, where they've tied him up with silver chains and rope soaked in what feels like some kind of wolfsbane. The scent of his own skin being slow-roasted is nauseating.

He opens his eyes and there's another sight waiting that makes him want to retch, it's so vile, so utterly wrong, Stiles, kneeling at Peter's feet, tied up like a damned dog. Derek's still weak, dizzy, but he hisses, pained as he feels his teeth try to bite fruitlessly through the gag that's been stuffed in his mouth. He thrashes, tests his bonds, but he only succeeds in tiring himself out more, flopping around like a fish out-of-water, starved for oxygen.

And he thinks of his pack, how he smells them now, underneath the floorboards, waiting to be gutted like animals in a slaughterhouse.

"It's time for your debt to be paid," says a voice, low and serious. Three figures come out of the shadows, one he recognizes—the red-haired wolf he'd thought he'd killed the night that Stiles was taken, and what has to be the last remaining members of the alpha pack.

"Peter tells me that this human boy is your mate. Very odd, I think, an alpha mated to a human, they're so-breakable," the man murmurs, grabbing Stiles by the roots of his hair, yanking up to stare at the boy's throat where Derek's mark is still visible, but only just.

"But he's not really my concern," the alpha says, though he adds, like an afterthought, "Though, I wonder if the bond is the same for them. Lena here, for instance, knew the moment you killed her mate, that lovely brunette whose throat you ripped out—it's agony, I've heard. I wouldn't know."

The alpha steps closer to Derek now, the blonde following closely at his heels. With his claws extended, he lets one, razor sharp, dance over Derek's pulse, teasing.

"Let's find out."

Derek doesn't flinch under the needle-point prick of the alpha's claws, his eyes wide, staring right into the red-fire gaze of the man hovering over him. He cringes though, at Stiles's pleas, expecting the boy's cries to be followed by a crack across the face—which they are—the blonde backhanding the boy with the precision of a whip.

The man snarls, and she shrinks back with a whimper, her eyes downcast, submissive. So, Derek thinks, this man is The Alpha, with a capital A, which means deep shit for all of them. Peter mutters filthy, soothing words into Stiles's ear, stroking the swollen flesh of his cheek, and Derek roars, drowning in the sound.

"Your human begging for your life," the blonde spits, her breath hot and sour in his face, "it's pathetic."

The Alpha shrugs, and with no ceremonials, no more words, strikes quick and true, plunging claws into Derek's chest, dragging them down with a terrible ripping sound, cutting all the way into bone, sinews of muscle unwinding like string over Derek's chest. The gag is removed, and even Derek can't stay quiet—and it's a terrible shriek, blood-curdling, that falls out of his mouth, echoing lonely throughout the crumbling walls of the house; and his own blood fills his throat, thick and viscous, and he falls to the ground, twitching and sputtering.

And he's not dead, not yet, but he's dying, his chest heaving the way he's seen animals do—deer hit by passing cars, dogs struck by stray bullets.

He shuts his eyes, tries so hard to block what he can, so Stiles can't feel it, but he's so tired, his body vibrating with so much rage and panic.

What happens next, Derek sees through a hazy curtain of raw pain and lack of oxygen. His Stiles, his perfect, beautiful, crazy-stupid-brilliant boy throws himself down on the ground, spitting a mouthful of wereblood onto the floor. There's a hum, and a buzzing, crackling sound followed by the pungent scent of sulfur—and even the Alphas feel it, their hackles rising—magic.

"A witch," the blonde bitch snarls, though her words are cut off by the fact that she's suddenly body-slammed violently by a writhing, fast-moving blur, what ends up being Jackson, Isaac, and Erica. They pin her down—it takes all of them, working together, to contain the flailing—her limbs like concrete bolstered by brute alpha strength. Lydia comes up behind her, her incredibly human eyes glinting with mischief as she waits for Jackson to nod before pulling a silver blade out from a holster in her boot.

She plunges it straight into the alpha bitch's heart, and Derek's own leaps with what he thinks must be pride, hiding underneath layers of throbbing aches and blood loss.

Derek struggles in his bindings, especially as he sees Stiles cornered by Peter, who's more animal than human at this point (but then again, wasn't he always).

But Scott is there, muttering in his ear, his claws slicing through the ropes that still hold him. And he's gripping Derek's shoulder, and the others are suddenly around him, and they've all got a hand on Derek's exposed flesh, their own veins twisting like snakes as they absorb the brunt of his pain, as it's shared between all of them.

The Alpha lets out a sound, wounded, barbaric. But he's gone in a second, and Derek shakes his head, not wanting any of his pack to follow because he knows it like he knows his own name that they will never see his face again, not ever.

When Stiles hits the wall, every single wolf in the room goes still, their eyes flashing eerily, and the pack descends on Peter. They're ripping him apart, Derek sees, and he lets them, doesn't even think about revenge, about getting his share, because Stiles is lying crumpled in a heap, his leg bent at an unnatural angle.

"Scott," Derek whines, and the boy nods, gathering Stiles in his arms, assessing the extent of the damage. And when Scott looks up at him, eyes wild and desperate, face ashen and pale, Derek knows it's bad, as bad as it's ever been.

"Derek—it's so—you have to save him, he's—"

And Derek knows what that means, knows that saving him means bite him, make him like us. It's everything Derek knows Stiles doesn't want. It's everything Derek never wanted for him.

He's on his knees, his own wound still dripping blood, drops like a torrent of red wine across Stiles's pale skin and Derek is shaking his head because he can't.

And Scott is yelling, screaming in his ear, but he sounds so very far away.

Derek's not expecting what Stiles does next, but then again, that should be a new rule of thumb when it comes to the boy. The older wolf never knows what Stiles is going to do, because the human is constantly surprising him with his intelligence, his bravery, and now this-

His power.

When the boy's dull nails hook into Derek's flesh, he bristles, biting back the growl in his throat at the fresh stab of pain. But the boy's muttering words, and the alpha's eyes widen in recognition as runes from an ancient tongue skitter across his skin like spiders. It's not easy magic, not like healing a cut, or opening a lock—this is a trade.

Life for a life. And as sure as he knows anything, he knows that the Alpha is out there, out in the forest, slowly being drained of his life-force.

Derek holds on tight, pulling Stiles closer as he feels foreign energy draw through his veins, foreign blood pump through his heart, using his body like a conduit as life force flows like water between them. When Derek looks into his eyes, it's not the bright coffee-colored irises he's used to seeing, but pupils black and empty, far away because Stiles isn't there—he's reaching into a void that Derek, being what he is, can never follow him into.

"That's enough, Stiles," Derek hisses, feeling the last dregs of the Alpha's power slide through him, but Stiles doesn't stop, not immediately, his energy still now latched on to the next available source of the most power in the room—Derek.

"Stiles," Derek mutters, his palms coming up to cup Stiles's face "come on, come back, that's enough."

And Scott is yanking on his arm, like that's actually going to help, and Derek's vision is going all blurry again, though he notes that Stiles's color is returning, his body warm and pliant against him, so that's a plus.

The whole still dying thing, not so much.

Derek is shuddering and shaking as that energy pushes its way back inside him, so pure and raw and unfiltered, his own skin feels too small and tight to hold it all. Little slivers of energy pour out of him, his pores, his eyes, like rays of light bouncing off a prism, like cracks in a mirror. The red in his eyes blazes like fire, and he smiles, feeling no pain as the fragmented pieces of his ribs align back together, his spine straightens, the shallow cuts closing like the zippers on a coat.

"Holy shit," someone says behind him, Boyd, Derek thinks, as he stands, flexing his limbs testily. He feels good, better than good, like he spent all night running under the full moon, breathing in cold, clean air, positively drunk on it. And the bond he shares with Stiles, it doesn't tug at him in all directions like before; it's still there, just under the skin, but it feels as much a part of him as him own limbs, an arm, a leg, his own teeth.

When Stiles doesn't open his eyes, Isaac and Scott hover over him, concerned, but Derek knows that the boy is fine, the steady, healthy drumming of his heart is sturdy and strong.

They all look like extras in the worst kind of gore film, but they're all fine. It's sort of a miracle.

He tells Scott and Isaac to take Stiles to Deaton, to get themselves all cleaned up while he takes care of what's necessary.

/

Needless to say, it's a good thing that the Sherriff knows what he is now, because showing up at the Stilinksi home covered in the blood of many, many different people would totally be justification enough for the man to pull a gun on him and shoot without a second thought. Instead, he just goes shock white, gulping in air, while Derek quickly assures him that Stiles is totally fine, just resting—not a scratch on him (which is true, but sort of a half truth).

"So—you killed them," the Sherrif says quietly, later, as he follows Derek into the now completely ruined wreckage of the Hale house, examining the bodies (or what's left of them) with a nudge of his boot, "the ones that took him—the ones that—" and he motions to the blood on Derek's shirt, assuming there are injuries hidden underneath his clothes.

Derek considers lying, considers downplaying what's happened here, but Stiles's father deserves to know as much as Derek can actually tell him.

"Yes," he says quietly. "No one will ever touch him again."

And it's not just a statement, it's a promise, and he thinks Derek's father understands the weight behind his words because he's stock still, his shoulders relaxing visibly, and he's silent, though Derek is pretty sure he hears a mumbled, "Good."

And it's enough, for now.

/

Derek drives the remains a few miles outside of town, burying them in the middle of the forest, in a place where normal, human eyes cannot find them.

But in a way that serves as plenty a warning for the not-so-human things that may still be out there.

He should go back to the den, check on his pack, his family that tonight proved more capable, more unified than he ever imagined. He's brimming with pride, but there's a longing that needs to be filled, a need to comfort and protect.

The window to Stiles's room isn't locked, and he lifts it with nimble fingers, the muscles in his face going lax with relief when he sees Stiles, gleaming, not a trace of blood and gore on him, lying sprawled across his bed, fast asleep. Derek still hasn't cleaned up, still mostly covered in blood and dirt and sweat. He doesn't want to lie down, soil the perfect image in front of him.

The boy stirs, barely even conscious, eyelids heavy, dark lashes trembling, and Derek hears him, whispering so quiet, but so full of need. "I don't want you to go. Stay with me. Stay." And it's so dark in the room, that it's just Derek's eyes that flare like a camera flash, illuminating the room. He shakes his head, presses a finger to his lips so Stiles doesn't try to speak anymore, and moves closer, perching on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes, his shirt, so at least some parts of him aren't bloodstained and grimy when they finally touch Stiles's skin.

The werewolf thinks his heart feels a little like bursting when he sees Stiles reach for him involuntarily with these adorable little grabby-hands that, Derek knows, if the younger man were more conscious, more aware, he'd totally deny ever having.

He slides in close, wrapping himself around the boy with the full extension of his limbs, sighing happily with a soft exhale into Stiles's hair, as their bodies fit like keys in a lock. The buzzing under his skin quiets, finally, and the link between them feels heavy and solid—stronger than ever.

As he drifts of to sleep, Derek's thoughts are mostly shapeless, wordless, but there's a fleeting image of Hale manor, in all its glory, a veritable mausoleum, a scorched relic— but with it there is no accompanying twinges of guilt or pain. And he knows, without words, without any acknowledgement that he will never go there again.

He doesn't need to.

Derek sleeps clear through the night, barely stirring, though in the early hours of the morning he does hear footsteps coming down the hallway. Automatically, his hold on Stiles tightens, and the boy lets out a noise like maybe he's gripping him a little too hard, and Derek begrudgingly loosens his grasp. The door opens with a click, the hinges squealing a little, and the alpha's eyes glow red as he turns, laser-like focus on the sudden intruder.

But it's just Stiles's father, whose expression is blank, if not a little sad. There's a moment where Derek is certain he's going to say something, anything, dare him to do something-but the man only nods, almost imperceptible.

And Derek thinks, this is not the end; someday there will be a time and place to discuss this, but it isn't now.

The door shuts, and Stiles whimpers in his sleep, burrowing closer against Derek's chest, and he nuzzles against Stiles's cheek to quiet him.

/

It's actually Stiles who wakes Derek next, pulling away, mumbling into his pillow. Derek grumbles, rolling closer to close the gap between them.

But when he opens his eyes, he does cringe a little, noting the discernable layer of grit and dried blood cracking over his skin. Slipping out from between the blankets with a last lingering graze across Stiles's spine, he heads to the tiny bathroom attached to the bedroom, stepping out of his jeans and into the shower. It's nothing more than a quick, cursory rinse, his nose wrinkling at the idea of using the scented soaps perched on the tiles floor. Derek doesn't even bother to adjust the temperature of the spray, which is blistering hot as it beats across his tired muscles.

When he checks his reflection in the mirror, he notes, with a look of awe, that the scars he'd gotten from the alphas are gone, his skin new and unmarred, almost glowing.

Which makes him wonder.

He slips his jeans back on, hair still dripping as he climbs over Stiles, maneuvering him onto his back as he lifts the boy's shirt up.

And it's gone…

The alpha's mark. It's gone.

And Derek notes immediately how the boy's pallid flesh blushes pink under his hands, exhaling sharply when he feels the kittenish swipe of Stiles's tongue rough over his damp skin. He finishes taking inventory of the boy's skin—satisfied that every unwanted scratch on him is gone, wiped clean, a fresh slate. It's beautiful, Derek thinks, such a smooth, blank canvas, as he ignores the hunger in him that leaps like a catching fire at the idea of marking it all up again. The air around Stiles is already thick with arousal, pulsating and swirling—it's incredibly distracting. The alpha rolls his eyes, eyebrows raised as he ignores (against the pleas of the beast howling inside him) the twitch of interest in his cock as he gently presses Stiles away, holding him against the mattress with the heel of his palm.

Derek's not keeping him immobile, just away, because he doesn't want to—he can't just jump right back into this so easily. He wants to, of course he does, how can he not, with the warm, heavenly scented body soft and willing underneath him?

"You have to be sure," he says, because he doesn't think he can take it if Stiles pulls away again. He's all in, has been from the beginning, that he can't—

"I won't just give you up again."

Stiles scoffs and Derek doesn't even have to look him at him to know he's rolling his eyes. "Did I ask you to?" And at that, Stiles grabs Derek's wrist and pulls himself upward and suddenly Derek's blinded by molten gold. The wolf huffs, his hand come up to brace against the curve of Stiles's spine, ducking his head into the touch. Stiles's breath is warm, ticklish on the sensitive skin of his jaw. It gives him goosebumps, and he makes a noise, a happy one, because he is—happy, that is. Here, with Stiles near him, surrounding him. He feels safe here. Stiles is home to him.

"When did you get so good at making me say yes to you?" Derek grouses. A year ago, the werewolf was immovable, fiercely stubborn and unwavering in his need for control, and now all Stiles has to do look at him like that. With his stupidly wide eyes, the way he's moving, scent wild, all ozone, crisp leaves, the taste of mountain air on his tongue. Stiles smells like power, and Derek's like a junkie coming back for more.

And Derek knows he's in trouble.

Big trouble

"C'mere then," he says, despite the fact that they aren't alone in the house, despite all the questions still nagging in the back of Derek's mind.

They do deserve this, that can't be denied.

"I never left, silly Sourwolf," Stiles whispers with an easy grin, the boy's grip on his wrist becoming less of a hold, more searching, his delicate fingertips dancing, stark white, against Derek's bronzed flesh.

And of course, that's not what he means, but Stiles is past listening now, past any sort of reasonable, logical discussion. Derek knows by the way he reaches for him; by the way he arches into his chest, the way he boldly brands him with the wetness of his tongue and sweet, hot breath in the hollow of his ear.

So Derek gives him exactly what he wants, showing a flash of teeth before flipping them with a growl, feeling it deep like a lump in his chest, pinning Stiles to the bed by his wrists, eager to quiet that smart-ass perfect mouth with a few marked nips to his lips.

"You have to be quiet," he rumbles into the nape of Stiles's neck, even though he traces the words with his tongue in a way that doesn't really encourage the sentiment, "or your dad's going to come in here and shoot me."

From Stiles's bedroom, Derek can hear the muffled noise of the ancient t.v set, the high-frequency whine of the ray tubes that makes Derek's ears hurt if he listens too hard. But he can also hear Stiles's father's breathing, slow, even, like he's dozed off in front of it. And at that, he laughs, an easy, lighthearted sound because he'd never pictured this—in all the scenarios with Stiles that he's certainly spent enough time imagining—that they'd be making out like teenagers in high school, trying not to get caught.

"You saved me," Stiles says quietly, "he'd never shoot you."

The words are wrong, so Derek stills, head cocked in disbelief. "Stiles….you saved us all."

At that, Stiles flushes pink and shakes his head. "But, I wasn't supposed to...I shouldn't have...Deaton's going to be furious, and I almost killed you, .again. which is kind of a record, even for me, and I-,"

And Derek cuts him off with a harsh, scraping kiss, and a murmured, "Shut up, Stiles," against the boy's lips, and Stiles makes a noise that might have started out as a moan, but comes out more like a growl.

Stiles's little growl hits Derek low in his belly, and the heat that pools there makes him ache in all the best ways. He's tracking his mouth all over the boy, pulling at the fabric of his shirt, not caring a bit when he hears the threads stretch and rip under the force of his hands. And before, Derek had done all that he could to put this behind him, to not think of this when they had been apart, to settle with the fact that he'd never get another chance to touch, to taste, feel.

But he was wrong, and he's not taking anything for granted. Not anymore.

This time he doesn't worry so much about being too rough, about holding him too tightly because he's seen firsthand now, the strength in every sinew of Stiles's muscles, the power he keeps hidden under all that awkward grace.

This time he traces every mole and freckle like he's committing them to memory, writing them down with teeth and tongue and fingertips, a map made of flesh and bone, just for him.

And yeah, Derek's not going to deny that he loves this, loves the way Stiles arcs under the rough pads of his fingers, the way he goes soft and pliant beneath the sturdy cage of Derek's weight. The boy is still so warm, eyes drowsy, half-lidded and heavy from sleep, and with the sun streaming in, blazing, from the windows, Derek can see all of him, every dusty freckle, and every perfect flush in high definition—in Technicolor.

Okay, yeah, and if Derek admitted to ever making a sound so—cuddly and unthreatening as a purr, it would be now, as Stiles cards his fingers through the strands of his hair, pulling just enough for the werewolf's hips to buck reflexively as they seek out familiar friction, the familiar shocks of pleasure, like sense memory, like remembering a dream.

He goes willingly, happily, letting Stiles ravage his mouth, groaning as he tastes the copper bite of his own blood, spilled out of pure recklessness, out of Stiles's eagerness to taste him. And if their story must still be written in blood, Derek hopes they can carve a new one, and that the ink comes from moments like this, from passion and lust and desire, and not the same pain and death and tears that have been haunting them for months.

He rids them of the rest of their clothes with frantic pulls, babbling pleas into Stiles's mouth, the only sounds in the room the slight rustle of blankets and fabric, Stiles's heavy, labored breathing, because Derek wants skin on skin everywhere, needs it after too many nights of longing, of lying awake restless and bitter and angry, always so angry.

With Stiles laid bare, as pale and ghost-white as the sheets on the bed, Derek sits back on his heels, eyes following the fullness of his hips, the curves of his thighs, the marked planes of his chest and remembers what he's heard about scorched earth.

That in there can be no hope, because nothing grows from ground that's been choked and gutted with ash.

But when Derek looks at the boy, the newness of him, he thinks what he's heard must be wrong.

"I had sisters besides Laura," he says suddenly, talking just to talk, though he doesn't know why—because pillow talk isn't exactly a thing he's ever had a proclivity for. But maybe he wants to share more with Stiles than just flesh, more than blood, he isn't sure, but the words spill out anyway. "Twins…just as human as you," the words he punctuates with presses of lips into skin.

"Scared me to death, when I was younger, because I couldn't feel them like I could everyone else, like weres. Used to sit in their room at night when they were little, check that they were still breathing, that they were safe."

"I like that I can feel you," is all he says before falling silent again, watching the sun go down from a peek of glass through Stiles's curtains. It's not 'I love you,' but it's enough for now.

But Stiles won't stop staring at him, but not like other people did, like they do, whenever he goes anywhere, just the man with the dead family, but Stiles, he never looks at him with pity in his eyes. It's something else entirely, that makes Derek shiver.

And he couldn't tell you quite how it happens: Stiles's arms are surround him, caging him in, but Derek notes surprisingly that he doesn't fight it, doesn't feel trapped. His cheek rests against the boy's and there's wetness there.

"Why are you crying?"

"Oh, my sourwolf," Stiles sigh against him, "I'm not crying. " And Derek feels a kiss pressed reverently against his eyelids, and he knows, knows the truth in that moment. There's a touch, gentle and reverent, and it's Stiles, holding his face in his hands.

"I'm not crying," Stiles says again," but you are."

That lingering touch on his chin, it's the last thing he feels before sleep claims him. From the moment he closes his eyes, he dreams, sinks into the images like he's falling into water. Some of them he recognizes, because some of them…are him. He's watching himself, standing over Laura's body—her wolf body—and he remembers that night, when he found them wandering around his property, how they'd –

And then it's gone

And he's watching himself sink to the bottom of pool, his lungs filling with water, limbs paralyzed from Jackson's venom as he's screaming for air but he can't make any noise, and then someone's lifting his head above water and he takes that breath like a victory.

But that's gone too, and then he's nowhere he recognizes, seeing things that aren't his to see, that don't belong to him.

A boy, small and pale, with his face buried into the folds of his father's overcoat, fast asleep.

A woman in a rocking chair, singing a song softly, under her breath, beautiful, happy.

Another little boy with eyes too big for his face, too much hair, dark and hanging into his eyes, laughing and smiling a crooked smile.

/

Derek wakes up with a gasp, still pressed into Stiles's side. He's knows what everything he saw belongs to Stiles, were the boy's memories bleeding through his skin, into Derek's. It's still dark outside, probably still the middle of the night Derek thinks, and he knows that he should leave, even though he doesn't want to—that he's stayed too long wrapped up in the boy, ignored his other duties, his pack.

He gets up, dresses quickly, pausing by the boy's bedside to nuzzle into his forehead.

He hopes that Stiles never sees into his memories like that. Because there's nothing good in them. Nothing worth being remembered.


	3. Chapter 3

It isn't as if it's magically easy afterward. They still get on each other's nerves, pretty much all the time. Stiles is still infuriatingly stubborn, with an almost supernatural disregard for his own life and safety. And it isn't like Stiles's dad is over-the-moon about the whole "fated lovers" situation. Now that Derek actually tries to use the front door, it seems like more and more he walks in on the Sheriff conspicuously cleaning the entirety of his firearms collection. This doesn't really bother Derek, as he's been shot before and lived (har har), and he agrees with most of the Sheriff's thoughts regarding Stiles's safety and wellbeing, anyway. Any awkwardness or tension seems worth it to Derek, in the end. After three or four weeks of this, however, Stiles puts the kibosh on the whole unsubtle threatening with some threatening of his own: nothing but kale burgers and quinoa for the next six months if the guns didn't start to disappear.

Stiles's dad had folded like a three-dollar-suitcase, so the matter seemed somewhat settled, for now. With the exception of one thing-no matter how much Derek baulked and growled and brooded, Stiles wouldn't stop pushing. Because Stiles had to know everything about everything, he'd made it his job to find out everything about their...whatever their thing was. This bond, which Derek didn't really know anything about, not really, was something that Stiles brought up frequently, especially when he was frustrated. So of course, Stiles had been reading. Stiles had been researching. And really, Derek shouldn't have nearly choked to death on his own tongue like he did, shouldn't have really been shocked at all, when the boy looks over lazily at Derek one afternoon, fluttering those damn lashes of his as they both lie sprawled in the thick grass below the porch of Stiles's house, and says, without pretense, "I think I'm ready for you to have me...you know, claim me. For real."

At the words, Derek's thoughts race with the possibilities, and he knows his eyes are flashing red, because Stiles is smirking at him in that way that he does when he's proud of himself, when he knows he's succeeded in pushing one of Derek's buttons. "Jesus, Stiles," Derek groans, "you can't just-"

"I can do whatever I want," the boy answers matter-of-factly, "and I want this. It's the natural progression of things, all the books, they say it stabilizes everything, so no more mood swings, no more panic attacks...no more shared nightmares," Stiles's words trail off into a whisper as he leans over to nuzzle Derek, whose body has stiffened at Stiles's verbal confirmation of Derek's biggest fear. He doesn't dare open his eyes, doesn't want to see the expression on the boy's face. It's never been pity, and he doesn't want to see if that has suddenly changed.

Now that the boy had seen it all, felt it all: seen the cinematic horror of all the fucked up tragedies that marked most of his life. All the people who'd suffered because of him. All the death, and the anger, and the loss. He feels goose- bumps on his neck, and he shivers. Stiles presses lips into his shoulder, and Derek lets out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"You saw it then…the fire, Peter, Laura….all of it. All the people I killed." Derek opens his eyes and Stiles is watching him, his golden gaze completely focused. It's not pity. It's something else: rage.

"Don't you dare, Derek. You had to realize...it went both ways. I know you saw her, my mom, how she was at the end... I know you saw Gerard torturing me, and Peter offering me the bite, all the times I got the shit kicked out of me, and pretty much all the other majorly fucked-up things that have happened, but it's...it's okay, you know that, right?"

Stiles is speaking so fast that Derek can only keep up due to his werewolf senses, but the whole time, Stiles's eyes still don't leave Derek's, not for a second. "How can it be okay, Stiles? If we do this-if I do this-it's forever. It's permanent. And I don't even know what that even means, and christ, you're so young."

"If you call me a fucking kid, I'm going to kill you."

"Stiles..." And suddenly, Stiles's hands are on both sides of Derek's head, and he's straddling Derek's waist, his lips so close and tempting, and Derek's vision blurs, then focuses, on a newly-bloomed freckle he hadn't yet noticed on the side of Stiles's mouth, and that's it. He's lost. "I love you," Stiles says. And It's so easy, the way the words seem to fall out of the boy's mouth, fiercely, almost a challenge, Derek thinks, as he grasps the back of Stiles's head to pull him in for a bruising kiss:

"I think I've always loved you, Stiles."

/

It's strange, Derek thinks, to have someone else in his head. He's so used to being alone that his natural instinct is just to keep pushing, to push and push until his walls are strong and hold fast around him, finding the suffocation of it almost comforting. But Stiles doesn't give a shit about walls, boundaries, or obstacles; he just rockets his way into Derek's orbit like he was made to be there-leaving Derek's walls shattered into pieces on the floor, pieces he never wants to put back together again.

Plus, Stiles, he never ever, ever...

shuts

the

fuck

up.

"What if I had two heads?"

"What?" Derek manages to gasp between gritted teeth. It's a little difficult for him to form words at the moment, given that his cock is surrounded by the perfect, wet heat of Stiles's mouth.

Stiles pulls off Derek's dick with an obscene pop, talking to Derek as if he's discussing something as arbitrary as the weather.

"You know, if I had two heads, purple skin, scales, a residual tail—you'd still have to love me just as much, right?What if I was green? What if I had my legs cut off? What if-"

"Stiles! Fucking—christ—will you just…" Derek's looking down and the picture he sees is so sinfully perfect, Stiles with his mouth around Derek's cock, gazing up at him through those outrageously thick eyelashes. But he's been teasing Derek with that mouth and those questions for what feels like an hour now, and Stiles has gotten him so close to the edge again and again until the wolf can barely even see straight. It's taking all of his self-control not to just take what he wants and fuck into Stiles's mouth until the boy chokes on him.

Stiles is grinning, stroking Derek tenderly, gently, so much more gentle than Derek needs and it's literally killing him. "What? You want something, big guy?"

There's that glint in Stiles's gilded eyes that proves he knows exactly what he's doing and he's fucking pleased as punch about it. "You know what I want—please, just let me…" Derek doesn't beg. He never begs. Okay, maybe he's begging a little, but fucking Christ. The words seem to satisfy Stiles, who lets out a pleased hum and begins sucking him in earnest, until finally, finally, Derek feels his release like a punch to the gut. When he looks down and sees Stiles licking Derek's cum from his fingertips like candy, he can't help it: he throws his head back and roars, the back of his skull hitting the hood of the jeep with a resounding, metallic crunch.

"Dude!" Stiles is gripping the front of Derek's shirt, but Derek is too blissed out to notice, just continues zeroing in all laser-like on the beating drum of Stiles's pulse. It's fluttering nicely, like the translucent wings of a butterfly. Christ, Stiles certainly was so his fucking drug of choice, so fucking addicting and pleasing and—"You just dented my car, you dumb werewolf."

Derek blinks back to reality and sees that Stiles is crossing his arms, peering around Derek, poking at the considerably sized concave dent in his jeep. Derek can't help it. He snickers.

"Not funny, dude!" Stiles says, pouting. It's infuriatingly cute.

"You can't call me dude when you had my dick in your mouth five seconds ago," Derek grumbles as he zips up his jeans and closes his belt buckle.

"I can call you whatever I want, whenever I want," Stiles says, sticking out his tongue.

Derek rolls his eyes and runs his fingers over a sizable rust spot on the hood of the car. "I can fix it, Stiles. I've got tools at the house. Though, come to think of it, I don't know why I even let you drive this deathtrap around in the first place..."

He trails off, glancing up to see that Stiles's face is pale, and his expression is wooden. "Oh, Stiles," Derek murmurs, "I didn't—I'm sorry…" He takes a step and Stiles flinches. Derek's stomach flops nauseatingly. The boy bolts faster than Derek can react, and he swears harshly as Stiles takes off into the thick and quiet darkness of the forest.

/

Stiles doesn't know at first why he runs, only that the thought of his car had led to thoughts of his mother, and Derek, and he'd felt the sudden, crushing weight of panic that set the adrenaline firing off into his bloodstream like a bottle rocket. He knows where he's going, he doesn't quite know how, but he does. His feet seem to know, at the very least.

By the time he reaches the graveyard, his breath comes in gasps, and his heart is pounding so hard he can feel it hammering in his throat and vibrating in his temples. The gate is locked and chained, as it's well past dusk, but Stiles just uses the tips of his fingers to trace runes over the links and the heavy shackle fizzles and snaps before crumbling to the floor, limp and useless.

Who knew magic and vandalism would go so readily hand in hand? He walks across the grass, the blades still damp and springy from the previous night's rain. He's shivering, suddenly realizing that he's clad in just a t-shirt, his customary red hoodie left forgotten in the driver's seat of the jeep. He hadn't even noticed the cold while he was running. Shoving his hands in his pockets and with his shoulders hunched, Stiles trudges through the yard anyway, weaving haphazardly through the headstones.

And he feels nothing but alone.

/

Derek feels the ache of that loneliness settle in his chest like a chasm. He doesn't intend to shift, but he feels it, the siren call of Stiles's pain, and with it, a sudden yearning to run. As the wolf, everything is sharper, clearer...more. And Stiles's scent is as heavy in the air as perfume. He follows it willingly, because he can't not.

As the forest gives way underneath his feet, he runs as if he's being pulled, like he's an anchor on a line and Stiles is the ship reeling him home to harbor. He doesn't even need use his eyes, his ears, because Stiles has made him an arrow shooting at a target. He can't miss.

When he approaches the cemetery, the gate is already open, and what's left of the lock is just a melted, twisted pile of metal left to lie in the dirt. Inside, Stiles's scent is even stronger, permeates completely, but Derek doesn't need to follow it to find him, anyway, because here, swathed in the glow of the stars and the moon, Stiles is a pale specter gliding amongst the tombstones. His skin catches the light like a beacon, because to Derek, that's exactly what he is.

Derek watches as the boy falls to his knees, gasping, in front of one of the largest headstones, and from where he stands, Derek can see etchings, bright and clear, of wings splashed across the glossy surface of the marble. He's not surprised that Stiles senses him before he approaches, and the boy speaks, barely a whisper, the words all soft and low and hollow: "You shouldn't have followed me here."

I didn't, Derek thinks, slinking calmly and gingerly through the grass like Stiles is some skittish, wild thing. You were calling for me. You made me shift. I didn't mean to.

Stiles scoffs. "And I didn't think wolves could talk." And at this, Derek cocks his large, canine head and blinks, puzzled.

You can hear me?

Stiles nods and shrugs, wiping what Derek assumes are drying tears from his. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You're in my head all the time anyway. And I still don't know how to control all this—I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to fuck this up."

Stiles is babbling now, his breathing still coming in frantic, shallow gulps.

Isn't that my line? The wolf edges closer to where Stiles sits slumped forward with his forehead resting against the side of the gravestone. He doesn't press, but Stiles reaches for him anyway, and Derek winces a little bit when Stiles buries his fingers in Derek's shaggy coat, the boy's nervous grip just falling barely on the side of too tight.

Stiles exhales harshly, gripping Derek tighter with one hand, using the other to trace the grooved letters that spell out Claudia Stilinki's name, white as a scar and shining. He feels the tension in the boy's spine, the way his slim body quivers against him."She'll never get to meet you."

And Derek understands now. You know you'll always have me. I'm not going anywhere. I promise…where you go, I go. Always. You don't need to be anything but you. That's all I need. That's all I want.

At this, the teen shakes his head as if in disbelief. "You're so sure. And you really believe it don't you? Even though…you've lost everyone, everything... more than anyone ever should. But you're still here, and you're so strong...what if I can't ever be like that? What if I screw it up?"

A growl rumbles heavily in Derek's chest. You won't. We won't. Trust me. I will never lie to you.

Stiles offers Derek a wan smile. "I guess I can't really lie to you either, huh? Human lie detector and everything."

Derek bares his teeth in a sharp, indulgent grin. Not really human. And as for lying, you were always crap at it.

Stiles laughs and Derek howls, the mingling sound echoing through the cold night air. They would be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

In the days that follow, Derek resigns himself to the indisputable fact that there were always going to be certain things to which Stiles would not cede—he would never stop calling Derek, "Sourwolf," or "Dude"; he would always throw himself into dangerous situations for the people he loved; he would never allow anyone to touch his car, ever.

So, needless to say, Derek is as shocked as he is pleased when Stiles shows up at the old garage Derek's been working at part-time. It wasn't as if he's been trying to hide it, but he hasn't even mentioned having the job to Stiles. It falls under the umbrella of personal details, something Derek admits are still a struggle for him to share (with anyone, let alone with Stiles).

Even from underneath the rusty pick-up truck he is currently tinkering with, Derek can smell Stiles before he even hears the strangled whining of the rattling old Jeep, the human's scent honeyed and cloying through the harsher stinging ones of oil, gasoline, and ammonia. Stiles's essence wraps itself like tendrils of pleasing fog around Derek until he just has to push himself out and up from underneath the truck-bed to see the boy descend from the cab of the car with an exaggerated hop. The boy stumbles a little off the step, his landing a little graceless, and Derek goes to him eagerly, whooshing across the garage floor to wind his arms around Stiles's slender hips, taking expert care to rub a stubbled cheek into the alluring hollow of the Stiles's collarbone. He hears the boy giggle in response, and the sound makes Derek go a little cross-eyed with need. Slender hands try to swat Derek away playfully, but the wolf is immovable, feeling his body melt under the warmth of Stiles's wide, electric smile.

"Watch the super-speed, Sourwolf," Stiles murmurs, tugging on Derek's hair as if that's meant to scold him. All it does is send shivers down his spine.

"Why? Humans are stupid," Derek mumbles against Stiles's throat.

"Hey!".

"Fine. Most humans except certain ones named Stiles," Derek amends, nipping the boy lightly on the chin before releasing him from his grasp, unable to stop the low, rumbling growl building in his throat when the sweet, hot scent of arousal rolls off of Stiles like a wave.

"Derek!" Stiles hisses, his cheeks flaming a brilliant crimson. Right, thinks Derek, probably not the place, as they aren't exactly alone. Taking a few deep breaths, Derek steadies himself, reels in the wolf that can't help but come out with the presence of his mate (specifically his mate seeking his help, letting Derek take care of him. Sure, it's a simple, base need, to care for another, but that doesn't diminish the pleasure he feels, given the ability to provide). The old man who runs the shop is fiddling in his office with some papers, and the fool of a boy that Derek works with, no older than twenty, is muttering curses into a broken carburetor he's been trying to fix for the past two hours.

"Sorry," he mutters, stepping back to survey the damage on the car. Stiles still has his thin fingers wound with Derek's, and the idea that Stiles hasn't let go thrills him to the point of embarrassment.

"How'd you even know I was here?" Derek asks.

"I heard Mrs. Kusinich from next door tell my Dad that she saw you working here. She thinks you're using it as a cover to run your own chop shop. She wanted him to…let's see, how did she put it? Oh yeah," Stiles says animatedly, "…give me a 'talking to.'"

Derek scoffs, rolling his eyes. "She's worried I'll strip her soccer mom van for parts?"

"She thinks you're corrupting my innocence," Stiles clarifies with a sly wink.

At that admission, Derek just squeezes his hand tighter. "If anyone's been corrupted, it's me. I have it on good authority that I used to be scary, you know." The boy laughs, surging up to catch Derek's mouth in a chaste kiss, and Derek finds he wants to open wide and swallow the sound whole, maybe Stiles along with it. He's not sure if he's ever heard anything more appealing in his entire life. But the blissful high he feels thrumming in his veins is cut short by a sharp, unwelcome sound of disgust.

"Never took you for a fag, Hale," A voice cuts through the pleasant haze of Stiles's skin and scent, and Derek manages to rip his gaze away from the boy long enough to see his coworker, (Gavin? Garret? Honestly, he can't remember) leaning against the Honda they both have been working on for days, the man's eyes leering and cruel. Derek can't help it, the snarl that builds in his throat, the sour note of rage that shudders up his spine. His grip on Stiles's hand loosens as he feels his knuckles crack, claws and teeth lengthening. Stiles's grip on him only tightens, and Derek goes still under the steady stream of soothing words that Stiles is muttering against the shell of his ear.

Derek is lucky that the boy is here. He's Derek's anchor, the wolf has never doubted that for a second, and the soft, lilting tone of the boy's voice is the only thing that's keeping the wolf in check at the moment, considering all Derek wants to do is feel the man's blood pouring hot and heavy, see him crumple to the floor.

A growl builds low and throaty and threatening in Derek's chest, but Stiles is already in front of him, bracing himself between the man and Derek, his long, bony fingers still wound tightly around Derek's arm to steady them both.

"Like you've even had a date in the last year that wasn't your right hand," Stiles says haughtily, his mischievous eyes flashing gold as he squeezes Derek's arm in tandem with Derek's rapidly unsettling heartbeat. His breath is coming in rapid pants, his vision flickering from red to white to red again. The wolf in him still wants to tear the man from limb to limb, to feel him squirming and helpless and begging under his claws.

The man holding the carburetor starts to looks uneasy, his eyes darting frantically under Derek's hostile stare.

"Gabriel!"

At the sudden intrusion, Derek and Stiles both stiffen, turning to see that the door of the tiny office garage has been blown open.

"Are you seriously trying to fuck with the Hale kid?" The old man, Derek's boss, is shaking his head, laughing, his gnarled hands gripping the doorframe to steady himself. "I mean, look at him. He could rip you in half without breaking a sweat. If you're gonna be a dumbass, do us all a favor and at least go after someone on the same playing field as you. I know that doesn't leave many options, but shit, boy, at least pay some fucking attention to who you're spewing that bullshit to." As he speaks, the man leans against the oak walking stick he holds in his right hand, moving slowly until he's square with Derek, who visibly unclenches, clutching Stiles's hand tightly one last time before releasing the boy and edging closer to Gabriel, who will no longer meet his gaze head-on.

"Derek," Stiles says, his voice a low and gentle warning, and Derek, he's in control now, but he's still grinning with the barest hint fangs, as he slinks closer to the man who's now pressing himself against the wall.

"Ahem," the older man coughs and Derek and Stiles share a knowing look as the man raises a hand and motions them back into the office. "Why don't you boys follow me in here, and we'll get your paperwork squared away, huh?"

The office is cramped and Derek's instincts are on high alert—he feels trapped, stifled and uneasy— but Stiles's heartbeat is steady and even, so he follows wordlessly anyway. Once the door is shut, the old man sinks into his chair with a relieved sigh, kicking his feet up on the desk with an easy smile. Stiles is uncharacteristically silent, Derek thinks, watching the boy's eyes narrow as they scan everything in front of him, the way his slender fingers tap in the same ancient rhyme of his swirling thoughts. And he can see it: the moment Stiles figures something out, like a light turns on behind the boy's eyes , how they seem to flare almost like a wolf's.

"He knows," Stiles says simply.

"What?"

"He knows about what you are. I can see it. Plus, you weren't exactly super subtle when you almost put your claws into the Rick Santorum wannabe out there."

The man's grey eyes twinkle mischievously , though Derek notes the man's heartbeat is as steady as Stiles's, and there doesn't seem to be any malevolence in his expression as he crosses his arms and shrugs.

"He's not wrong. Not every human is an idiot, Hale. I've been in this town going on forty years now. Long enough to know that the only people who don't know about the shit going on here don't wanna know."

At that, Stiles tosses his head back and laughs.

/

By the time Derek gets home later that day, the house is full again, with Isaac and Boyd tossing a lacrosse ball back and forth in front of the house while Erica looks on, feigning boredom. He's shocked to see Jackson there, Lydia notably absent, sulking with a sour expression on the front porch. Derek strips out of the clothes that smell like dirt and gasoline and motor oil and then goes back outside, standing off to the side, arms crossed, just watching them all intently.

He's not surprised that Jackson makes his way over there, moving slowly like he's suspicious that Derek's going to bite his head off (which, with both of their track records, it's not that implausible).

He makes a point not to look at Derek when he talks, deliberately keeping his eyes focused on the game still happening on the lawn, like it's the most fucking interesting thing he's ever seen, and just grumbles, "so you got stuck with Stilinksi as your mate, huh? Sucks for you."

And Derek just snorts, doesn't even answer because this is the only way Jackson knows how to be, he doesn't necessarily mean anything by it.

"…so how'd you know? That he—what's it feel like?"

And Derek, his mind is suddenly racing with the meanings behind the words, what Jackson's really getting at.

Lydia.

"It feels like I'll die if I can't have him," says Derek, because it's true. He knows it is.

And he doesn't have to look at Jackson to see his face, to see the longing in it, for something he wishes he felt, wishes he possessed the capacity to feel.

/

That night, there's no moon in the sky, not at all, just dark and empty sky when he vaults onto the roof of the Stilinksi home. There's mountain ash runes still scratched on the shingles, but they aren't meant for him, not meant to keep him out.

He lifts the window pane, pleased that it isn't locked. He can already feel his body relax, the tension in his muscles easing as he breathes in familiar scents—the musty books, Stiles's laundry detergent, the stale coffee abandoned in the kitchen downstairs. He moves wordlessly, soundlessly, sitting on the bed, content to watch as Stiles is bent over his desk with several aged and cracked manuscripts sprawled open in front of him, loose-leaf pages fluttering like birds as he flips them in his hands. He likes watching Stiles taking things apart, the faraway look he gets in his eyes when he's trying to solve a puzzle with all the pieces laid out in front of him. He likes the way his fingertips twitch every so often, how he bites the perfect swell of his lip, like he doesn't realize how completely pornographic his mouth looks to everyone else.

And Derek almost falls asleep, just sitting there, sprawled across Stiles's bedspread, because he's as comfortable here, more-so even, as he is at the reserve. Stiles's heartbeat, his breathing, it's a steady vibrato that lulls him to the precipice of drifting off. It's only when Stiles turns in his chair, swearing softly as he shoves the book away from him in a clear frustration that Derek moves at all, blinking the tiredness from his drooping eyelids. When Stiles stretches, the hem of his shirt rides up, flashing an alluring strip of paleness, the jut of his hipbones where the faint purpling bruise of teeth can be seen peeking from underneath his waistband. It makes Derek's mouth water at the memory of putting it there. And Derek, he's never hated what he is, not really, even for a second, but he wishes he could bear the marks like Stiles does his, even though he's branded just as surely and deeply underneath. Because it isn't fair, he thinks, that Derek's body doesn't show his sins, the pain he's caused, the things he's seen. If he could be marked, there'd be a lot of them—there'd be burns on his right hand where he ripped the doorknob off of his burning home, the searing metal melting the flesh right down to the bone, and there'd be marks on his back where Kate scraped her nails as she rode him, leeching her rancid poison into Derek's heart. There'd be deep and crooked lines on his wrist where Derek tried futilely to end himself for weeks, so many times, and the acrid taste of fury he'd felt when each time the vein closed itself so flawlessly.

That was the only time Laura ever hit him, the only time he ever saw her with eyes burning with rage. Because, she never blamed him, not even once, though he didn't know why, even though anyone could see where the blame really lay (on him, entirely on him). That was why he'd gotten the triskelion in the first place, let that witch doctor use ink weighed down with wolfsbane, scarring flesh concealed under thick, black lines. Even though he was sick for days because of it, delirious with fever, and Laura curled around him, helped him heal, all the while, and crying softly into his shoulder.

Derek's lost in thought until Stiles squeaks suddenly, like a startled rat, and Derek's not really surprised that he didn't notice his presence. When Stiles gets like this, the wheels in his mind turning as he breaks down whatever obstacle's in front of him, he's pretty blind to anything else. But then Stiles is smiling, and he's just staring at Derek in a long, stretched moment of quiet, the same way that Derek normally stares at him. And as usual, Stiles can't stay still for long, and Derek tracks his movements as he pushes himself up off the desk chair to the edge of the bed, leaning in to press lips against Derek's collarbone, sucks a line of delicate marks along the curve where his shoulder meets his throat, nipping sharply at the skin just above his quickening pulse. Derek knows Stiles can't help himself, the same way the wolf can't. Even though no mark he makes will stay, he still tries, placing them delicately against Derek's skin like a promise.

When Stiles crawls into his lap, Derek hums, pleased, into the column of his throat. "Hi," he murmurs, arms looping around the boy's waist, settling around it like they were always meant to be there, fingers searching out the sharp rungs of his spine, pressing gently. He's remarkably cold underneath Derek's flame-hot skin, and the alpha mentally chastises himself for forgetting about the boy's…humanness, how he could be damaged by something as benign as a forgotten open window.

When Stiles leans in and rests his forehead to Derek's chest, Derek makes an approving noise, but it's not close enough for him (though it never is, when it comes to the boy), so he lifts him into his lap, lifting Stiles's leg to wrap around him, so Stiles can loop his arms around Derek's neck. This is better, he thinks. So they're pressed so close, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, so Derek can scrape his nails down the sensitive skin of Stiles's back, where his skin is softest, where it prickles under his insistent, needy touches.

"Should've used the front door," Derek murmurs, but shrugs, following it with a kiss, "but, you know what the say—old dogs, new tricks. Your dad even gave me a key." He reaches under the collar of his shirt, revealing a small skeleton key hung on a ragged twine string.

"He gave you a key? Did he ask you to go steady, too?" Stiles asks, running his fingertips carefully over the grooved metal, tugging gently, the corners of his lips turned upwards in a coy grin.

It had been one of the most awkward interactions that Derek can remember. Stiles had been busy making dinner, forcing Derek and the Sheriff to "bond," which normally included them sitting quietly in front of the television, football or some other game that Derek pretended to watch with as much feigned interest as he could possibly muster blaring on the tv, the intermittent static making Derek wince. The older man hadn't even looked in his direction, just grunted and thrust the key, small and freshly cut, still smelling a little of burnt nickel, into his palm, grumbling under his breath some sort of indecipherable combination of words like "Stiles," and "safe," and maybe some sort of roundabout thank you? It's not like Derek had ever needed a key to get in, he'd wanted to say. If Stiles was ever in danger, Derek knows he would move heaven and earth to get to him. He would rip the hinges off a door like they were nothing, like tearing the wings off a fly. But part of Derek had also understood, the need for this hollow human ritual, and had simply nodded, tucking the key carefully into the pocket of his leather jacket and not saying another word about it, much to the Sheriff's visible relief.

/

"Brat," Derek chides, biting down hard on Stiles's bottom lip, swollen from his worrying attentions, nosing underneath his chin against Stiles's answering tremble. And Stiles, he shivers under the press of fingers into day-old marks, leans into the touch like reliving a dream, because it's all Stiles seems to think about, the only thing that calms him, the flesh memory of Derek holding him steady. One hand traces idly over Derek's neck, taking in the feel of his pulse beating. Maybe Derek is capable of forgetting Stiles' humanity, but Stiles is never quite able to forget the wolf that waits just beneath the other's skin; there are too many physical cues, tiny things, like the fact that he's fever-hot all the time and the faint thread of something more-than-human in his voice when he gets emotional or intent about something. Stiles doesn't mind. It's part of the appeal, honestly.

Besides, without the werewolf thing there'd be no bond, and his draw wouldn't be nearly as strong. He knows that for a fact, feels mildly guilty about that if he thinks about it too long, because it's not that it's all on that, all on some sort of supernatural mumbo-jumbo. And yeah, Derek tends to set him on edge, just as much as he puts him at ease. It's the swift movements, the unexpected responses, the things the werewolf can't help and Stiles wouldn't want him to. That's not it at all. He loves Derek, unequivocally he does, he just... he thinks there might always be a tiny, secret part of him that won't ever really trust that the other actually wants him, honestly, without the constant tug of the bond there to remind him

Derek's hands are rubbing steady, searching circles into the backs of Stiles's knees, and it's becoming very hard for him to focus, and who could blame him, really? Stiles can't help it, the way his nails dig into Derek's arms, relishing in the way that they wrap around him, tight and unbreakable as a steel cage. It's not a trap though. It doesn't feel like that. He just feels…protected. He feels grounded.

"I'm glad I didn't have to cut your arm off," Stiles whispers, a little breathlessly, squeezing Derek's arm while punctuating the action with a kiss. "Would it really have healed? Would you really have grown another arm?" And yeah, this is the babbling part of things Stiles can't really help, can't really deflect or reroute the constant stream of questions that plague his conscious, waking thoughts.

Derek murmurs against his mouth, "Probably, maybe."

Stiles beams. "You would have staked your entire arm on a probably? Even then?" Because at the time, Derek hadn't trusted him, hadn't trusted anyone, not ever. It seems odd, to the think that he would have staked his life on the whims of a hyperactive teenager.

At the question, Derek just shrugs, kisses him in a way that's all force, before muttering. "Laura, my sister, she regrew a toe once."

"A toe is not an arm," Stiles breathes into Derek's collarbone. "How'd you find that out, anyway?"

Derek chuckles . "Let's just say, it wasn't…not my fault?"

"Trying to confuse me with double negatives isn't going to help," Stiles admonishes. "You ripped your sister's toe off, didn't you?"

Derek at least has the decency to look sheepish about it. "We were experimenting with our abilities and she asked me to. It grew back!"

Stiles shakes his head, because werewolves.

Derek is staring at him again, and Stiles doesn't miss the emotion that flashes across the man's face. It's easier for Derek, maybe not so much now, but certainly back then when they'd first met, to hide it under anger, tucked beneath the shadow of the wolf that Derek wears like armor. Stiles can recognize it for what it really is, is better at it than most because he's seen it before on his own face staring right back at him in the mirror.

Grief.

Stiles reaches out, rests his palm against Derek's cheek. "I wish I could have met them."

"Met who?"

"You know who."

Derek nods, and Stiles can't hear his heartbeat or track his scent the way the werewolf can, but he can read Derek like an open book. It's an odd thing, Stiles thinks, whenever Derek's family is mentioned, how Derek brushes over them like they are a small glitch, just a blip in his unspoken, tumultuous history.

"It doesn't matter," Derek says a little desperately. And yeah, Stiles knows the alpha isn't very good at the whole talking thing. Stiles used to think that Derek was kind of like a paper mache person, if that makes sense, all hollow and empty inside, but he was wrong. Derek feels everything. He feels it too much, because he can't not.

"What if I could though?" Stiles whispers.

Derek flinches. "You can't bring back the dead, Stiles. We know that better than most. What's dead should stay dead."

Stiles shakes his head because that's not at all what he means. With a last lingering touch, the boy slips out from Derek's grasp, and tries not to think about how noticeably different he feels when he's not touching the wolf—how he feels it, the intrinsic sensation of loss- to grab the books from his desk that he'd been pouring over for the past few weeks.

"Here," Stiles says, laying the books out on the bedspread and crawling back into the wolf's lap to show him what he's been working on. "Look," he says, pointing to one of the light-bleached pages in the largest, oldest tome, the writing on it looking like some kind of chicken scratch, all crisscrossed lines.

Derek's brows furrow. "What language is this?"

"It's the Ogham alphabet," says Stiles. "The druids used it in medieval times. I've only just finished translating it completely—" and Derek interrupts him for a moment here, looking dumbfounded.

"What? Is there something on my face?"

"You can read this?" Stiles doesn't miss the tone of awe in Derek's voice, and he flushes. "Lydia helped. Mostly with the physics stuff…I'm not the best at String Theory, and she's always been better than me at science but," and Stiles is babbling again, but he can't help it. Derek's doing distracting things with his hands, running his fingers in Stiles's hair, blunt nails harsh against his scalp. Stiles doesn't even think Derek's aware that he's doing it, how he always has to touch him. It makes Stiles feel needy. It makes him ache.

"Stiles," Derek prompts gently, "what's the ritual?"

"Oh, right, um…well the simplest explanation would be, I don't know, memory walking, I guess? And it's easier to do if I have something that connects the memory to the present. You know…that ties them together, something that existed in both places in time."

"Like a tether," Derek says.

"Yeah, yes, even if it's just a photograph. I tried to find some, I even asked Deaton, but he said they were all lost during—"

"During the fire," Derek finishes.

/

"Yes," Stiles says quietly.

Derek's mind races. It's not a thing he ever thought was possible before, but then again, so much wasn't, before Stiles. When the hunters laid waste to Derek's family, to his whole life, it ripped something right out of him, out of his soul. It broke him. Sure, he was alive—walked around like any other breathing, talking, living thing…

But he was really just a thousand shards of glass in a mirror that someone put back together wrong.

"Remember that night," Derek says, "when I touched you for the first time?" His voice sounds rough, even in his own ears, as his throat tightens with the memory of his first real taste of the boy's mouth, how it was like food to a starving man, the way his flesh seemed to sing under Derek's fingertips, setting the all-consuming fire ablaze that's been raging in Derek ever since.

"There was a book on the windowsill. It was a journal." Stiles doesn't wait for Derek to continue. He just runs to his desk, and Derek actually has to duck to avoid being hit by the books Stiles is throwing around as digs through the piles in his room.

He hears Stiles's breath hitch, his jackrabbit heart racing when he finally finds it, holds it out to Derek who takes it wordlessly, flipping to the very last page to find the words he remembers scratching with the heavy bronze fountain pen he'd gotten from his sister Cora for his fourteenth birthday. He can even still taste the mildewed, woodsy scent of the Sailor ink his father used, thinks how even then it tasted like ash coating his tongue.

Derek S. Hale

2002

"It was mine."

Stiles's pale, slight fingers find Derek's on the page."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes," Derek says. There's no hesitation, no waver.

"Then close your eyes and promise not to let go, okay?"

"Okay."

So Derek does, even though it makes him feel stupid and vulnerable, his other senses blaze to life when he follows Stiles's command.

Stiles is murmuring in a foreign tongue, words so impossibly quick and fast and light that Derek can't pick one phrase out of the other. There's a crackling sound that makes the hairs on Derek's neck stand to attention. Magic. Derek can sense it, the ozone scent of it tickling his nose.

Stiles falls silent. Derek can hear him panting heavily, leaning against him as he uses the wolf's bulk to steady himself.

"Open them."

So Derek does.

/

The walls of Stiles's room have fallen away. They're back in the preserve, but it's different. Looks a little shimmery, the light from the sun that shines overhead seems to refract a little bit wrong, and Derek notes that he doesn't cast a shadow here. It's a confusing assault on his senses, can't pick any one sensation out over the other like he can normally. Sounds are too, too loud. Smells are a tangled, Gordian knot and he can't untie them, can't separate the threads into anything concrete.

Birds screech overhead.

And Stiles—the boy is grinning at him like a victory.

"Come on, or we'll miss it. I don't know how long I can keep us here. When Lydia and I tried it, it was only a few seconds before I lost it. We went to her fourth birthday party. It was unicorn themed. It was very illuminating." Stiles hums as he pulls him to his feet and Derek follows, keeps the boy's hand in his own just like he promised.

The path is achingly familiar, and Derek knows where Stiles is taking him, but that doesn't mean it feels any less like a hot knife in his chest when he sees it, the Hale house, what Derek thought could only be burial ground, resplendent and glittering like some kind of castle straight out of a storybook peeking out from a blanket of oak trees. He doesn't know how he could have ever forgotten it.

"It's beautiful," Stiles says.

"Yeah," Derek says, "It was…It is." Stiles propels him forward again as they climb the steps to the front door. There's no scorch marks. The doorknob is brass. It's whole again.

The staircase isn't splintered anymore. It's whole too, oiled maple, and the walls are the same olive color he still sees sometimes when he closes his eyes at night, right before he falls asleep. There's no gnarled roots busting through rotting floorboards. Even the air, it smells warm and welcoming, and he thinks that he knows what that scent is so immediately because he's felt the absence of it for so long.

Joy.

There are voices coming from the room to the left, tucked under the awning of the staircase. It's the kitchen.

Derek stills. His hands are shaking.

"We don't have to," Stiles says, his tone nervous and weighted with doubt. "I don't want to make you." I don't want to hurt you, is what he really means, Derek thinks. But Stiles makes him brave, so he opens the door and he walks in.

"It's you," Stiles breathes, and Derek follows where he's pointing, and is stricken when he sees himself, freshly fourteen, sulking at the kitchen table. His face is still slightly rounded with youth, the hollows of sharp cheekbones still un-carved and not yet realized. His mouth is curved into Derek's trademark scowl. He'd forgotten how long he used to keep his hair back then. It's damp and hanging in his younger self's eyes like a curtain.

"You were short," Stiles says, bewildered. "And your hair is wet."

"I hadn't had a growth spurt yet," Derek says defensively. "And I think…this was the day Laura pushed me in the river."

"Why?" Stiles asks.

And Derek actually laughs, though it comes out more broken sounding than he means it to. "Andrew Dunkirk."

"You fought with your sister over a boy?" Stiles asks, one of his delicate eyebrows arching pointedly.

"He was her date to junior prom. I told her he smelled bad so she threw me into the river and held me down in the mud. She broke two of my fingers. My mom was furious."

"Rude," says Stiles, "but then again, you kinda deserved it for the whole toe thing."

"Andrew Dunkirk smelt like patchouli oil and bad pot. He made me listen to Phish." Stiles makes a face like he gets it now.

"You were moody even then, Sourwolf," Stiles says, sounding pleased. Derek nods, but then he hears them, two distinct heartbeats whose patterns he thought he'd never ever get the chance to ever hear again.

"Is that…" Stiles starts, and Derek looks up, frozen in place and so thoroughly rattled by who's standing in front of him that he almost doesn't want to look because he's afraid if he does, it won't be true and it won't be real. But Stiles is here, with him, is giving him this. Dragging him out of the darkness and filling that gaping wound in him that grief hollowed out, the one he hasn't ever been quite able to fill back up. Because Stiles knows what it is to feel alone, and truly, utterly so.

It's his mother.

She's as tall and strong and as beautiful as he ever remembered her, with her long, dark hair and eyes as deep and vast as the ocean.

"Talia," Stiles says, awestruck.

"And my father."

/

The look on Derek's face is mesmerizing. And as Stiles appraises the Hale family, he thinks he understands Derek more than he could have ever hoped to in this very moment. He gets why Derek kind of forgot what it was like to be human, because how could he be after what happened? He had this, all this, and he lost it.

Maybe Derek can't ever quite get it back, but Stiles can try to give him something.

Stiles wants to give him everything.

Derek's father looks like Derek. He has the same broad shoulders and big hands, the same thick eyebrows and dark hair, the same bronze coloring. He can see where Derek gets his toothy, white smile. The man is heart-wrenchingly handsome, Stiles thinks, though he looks older than Stiles thought he would, his beard a mix of salt-and-pepper gray, laugh lines and crow's feet hooding his eyes. His hands are at Talia's waist, tugging on the strings of the floral apron she's wearing, when she whispers something into the shell of Derek's father's ear, and he laughs. The sound is booming, full and rich. He bares the column of his throat and Stiles sees it, a scar peeking out from under the collar of the button down he's wearing.

Stiles watches as Talia's gaze falls on it too, and he notes how she reaches up to trace the mark with a polished fingertip, her green eyes bleeding that alpha red, just for a second

It's the same way Derek always looks at Stiles: hungry.

"I thought werewolf bites heal after you turn. They don't leave a scar," Stiles says.

"No," says Derek, "they don't. But claiming bites do. And everything scars when you're a human."

/

And he doesn't mean to let go, but Derek's words shake him enough that he loses the last of his concentration, feels the chords of magic he's been holding onto slip out of his fingers like frayed threads. The walls of the Hale house shimmer and melt around them until they're gone, and they're back in Stiles's musty bedroom.

Stiles wobbles in Derek's arms before falling to his knees as energy pulses its way back inside him, a rush that leaves him feeling untethered, dizzy, and high. He wonders if Derek can still smell it on him, the magic, because Stiles can still feel it tingling, a little like sparks flying off a campfire, each one stinging, but only just.

He's shaking so violently he can feel his teeth clinking together. It's deafening to him, so he can only imagine what it sounds like to Derek.

Derek.

The sparks still on his skin seem to catch, igniting a licking flame of lust that flares and pulses around him like heady perfume.

"Stiles." His name on Derek's lips sounds like a prayer, and then Derek is touching him and his hands feel like a fever. It feels like his skin is tinder and Derek's the match.

"Stiles," Derek says again, his voice sharp and clear amid the high-pitched whine that's buzzing in his ears. Stiles doesn't even realize that he's tearing at his own clothes until they're off and he's naked from the waist up, because it feels like he's going to burst, because he's too big for his skin and he's drowning in it.

"Tell me what you need," Derek commands.

"I need you," Stiles says desperately. "I need you to touch me. Touch me and don't stop."

/

And oh god, those certainly weren't the words Derek was expecting to hear, not now, not tonight, and they go straight to his dick, it practically hurts, fuck, and he's so hard and straining against his jeans…He's never heard that tone in Stiles's voice before, never, even before, so raw and pleading. There are alarm bells that go off, in the miniscule part of his brain that's still sort of functioning at a rational level that whispers, warns him, 'no, no, don't, you can't.'

So Derek grabs Stiles's chin with his other hand, grip bruising, and forces him to turn his head so Derek can look at him, see into his eyes, know for sure that he really means it.

And god, they look like melted gold, practically rolled straight into the back of Stiles's head, his mouth so wet and pink and full, gasping Derek's name already, like he was made for it.

Because he was, he is…

And if Derek trusts anything, he trusts this, that the bond—it knows better than he does, that Stiles was made to be his, his body made to fit his own so perfectly, his scent, the way he feels in Derek's hands, and it all points to the indisputable fact that…hurting Stiles, it would go against every instinct, every fucking law in nature, to harm what belongs so utterly to him.

So even if Derek's brain has lingering doubts, his body obviously doesn't, as he capture's Stiles lips in kiss that's filthy, really, just mostly them gasping into each other's mouth, before he pulls away—which is painful enough, fuck—to get rid of the rest of their clothes.

"Come back," the boy begs brokenly. Stiles never stops moving, not his mouth, not his hands, not his body as he undulates like a live wire in Derek's lap. The boy doesn't shrink away at all, not a bit of self-consciousness or embarrassment as he grinds shamelessly against Derek's frame, whimpering, crashing into him like waves. And if Derek closes his eyes, focuses just on this, on the way his nerve endings sizzle under the boy's touch— he can almost pretend he's afloat in an ocean, somewhere warm, somewhere different.

He kisses Stiles, filthy and open-mouthed, drinking in the words like he's dying of thirst. He could do this for hours, just this, teasing and nudging Stiles apart, breaking him down into pieces just to see how he works, just so he can put him back together again, all shiny and new. All Derek's.

He slots his thumbs into the grooves, the dimples in Stiles's lower back, and the way the boy jolts, he knows he's found another one of Stiles's sensitive spots—the reaction, the aching whine he pulls out of him, hitting every button in Derek's body marked lust. Stiles is moaning brokenly, his whole body still shuddering, his toes curling into the carpet like he can already feel Derek, like a ghost's touch.

"God, look at you," Derek breathes, just watching him, following the sharp lines of the boy's body, first with his eyes, and then with his fingers, sun-bronzed against moon-pale.

Derek lets his fingers wander, squeezing and pinching tender flesh, playing the symphony he promised on the rungs of the boy's spine, the curves of his ribs where the boy's breathing comes in rapid gasps, teasing his hands lower where the promise of heat and slickness lay.

He wonders as he sucks hickeys into the scraped skin of the boy's collarbone if there's a pattern, an archaic design his wolf seems to follow as he watches in awe as the bruises bloom ruddy and purple, a swirl of colors straight out of the oil paintings in the museums he saw in New York so long ago.

"You should see yourself, hear yourself," he murmurs. Stiles could be a figure right out of something like that, he thinks, too pretty to be anything but statuesque. He mouths into the unmarred, perfect flesh of Stiles's wrist, bites down with blunt human teeth.

"I love you. So much. You're mine."

"Say it again," Stiles begs. So Derek does. And then Stiles is pulling back, holding Derek's gaze as he slides a hand across his own skin, tracing fingertips along the line of marks left across his collarbone, trailing down over his chest, his stomach, until he can wrap a hand around his own cock, biting back a sound as he falls into a familiar pattern of touch. Eyes go half-lidded, but they're open just enough, pupils blown open wide as windows, making sure Derek's still watching, How could he ever look away?

"Again," the boy is practically sobbing, and he's a wild, wanton thing, with his nails digging so hard into Derek's back— just like that first night—that the boy draws blood.

"You belong to me. Forever."

The sound that slips out of the seam of Stiles's lips is almost unearthly. Pure pleasure.

And Derek's hunting instincts are on red-alert now, with such pretty, perfect prey begging for it underneath him. His eyes are brilliant garnet, hyper-aware, following the trail of Stiles's hands, not moving, not even to breathe. Stiles's heart is hammering, his chest heaving; Derek can see it, hear it, blood and air, like the pounding of bass out of sound system hooked up directly to his ears, directly to his brain.

His body rejects the separation wholeheartedly, feels how thebond practically tears inside him, urging Derek to follow, pressing Stiles back into the floor. Derek lifts his hand, follows the exact path of Stiles's own fingers, skittering across the milk-white expanse until they meet around Stiles's length, lava-hot as he dwarfs Stiles's grip with his own, stroking with practiced twists of his wrist, mirroring the caress with his thumb over the pulse point on Stiles's neck where it still throbs determinedly.

When Stiles comes, Derek takes it in, licking his lips at the way the boy's hips buck and stutter, the way he crooks his neck, a half-moon curve, to bare it to Derek's fangs on instinct because he knows Derek loves it.

"I could watch you come over and over," Derek hisses, stroking himself as he murmurs the words against the fleshy curve of Stiles hip where he's mouthing, "someday I'll do it, spread you out." It doesn't take much more than that, the image of Stiles at Derek's mercy—he breaks apart with a snarl. And the animal in Derek, so very close to the man, loves the messiness that comes with sex, the stink of sweat and release and the way scents mix into one. It's primitive, primal, sure—and Derek's convinced the way he rubs his own release into Stiles's skin, the wolf positively exuberant at the thought of Stiles's reeking of him for days, claimed, will seem gross and barbaric to the boy, but he's so fucked out he doesn't even care.

All he can think is mine.

Forever will never be long enough.


	5. Chapter 5

Before all of this, the part of Stiles that had so fervently held on to every shred of his humanity would have been thoroughly, well, weirded out, by Derek's behavior. Instead, now and like this, still shuddering in Derek's arms, Stiles gets it. The part of him that holds the bond, that runs with wolves, and wields power out of nowhere, understands. Derek's marking him, not like he has with the scatter of bruises across his skin, but with scent. The marks he can hide. This, anyone or anything with the capacity to notice will be able to comprehend:

Someone owns him.

And the possessiveness thing, Stiles never really thought that'd ever be so fucking appealing, but he also thinks that maybe it's because a large part of him he thinks he has always secretly wanted that— to belong, to be a part of something, to be someone's. But part him also thinks it might just be Derek—Stiles wants to be his.

Because nothing else has ever managed to quiet the panic and anxiety and uncertainty that's been crawling like spiders through his blood and under his skin ever since his mom died—not the pills, not therapy, not lacrosse, not Scott or his dad or Lydia, not anything.

He's clinging to Derek still and panting into the man's shoulder, but he already feels like the wolf's unbreakable grip and his even stronger words, the way he's branding them into Stiles's hip, have slipped into the cracks in him and tied some of the loose parts back together, pulled him back to the earth from where he almost flew away.

"You're still shivering," Derek says, and Stiles leans into the warmth of his hands as Derek pushes away the sweat-soaked curls of hair falling into Stiles's heavy-lidded eyes.

"I'm fine," Stiles says, but even he's surprised by how slurred and thick his voice sounds. He still feels a little frantic and needy, like if Derek lets go of him he might float away again like some kid's lost party balloon.

"Let's get you cleaned up," Derek whispers, and Stiles almost wishes he wouldn't, wishes Derek would leave the mess so Stiles can feel it, know it's there, feels like he needs to be able to see it because he can't smell it the way the wolf can. He must be shaking his head, because Derek sort of laughs at him as he gathers Stiles up in his arms, easy, like he's carrying a ragdoll, and the boy is thankful for that because honestly Stiles wasn't sure he'd be able to stand or walk on his own, his legs still all tingly and numb from exertion.

"You'll think otherwise in the morning," Derek says, and sets Stiles into the nest of blankets of his unmade bed in a way that's so gentle and reverent that Stiles is pretty sure he might actually break into a million pieces. So he can't really be held accountable for his actions when the alpha tries to extricate himself from Stiles's grasp and all he can do is whine, high and clipped, the sound of it coming out a lot more wolfish than he intends it to.

Derek's eyes flash and Stiles wonders if that's an every werewolf thing, a sort of call and response, or if it's just a Derek and him thing (because Stiles seriously thinks his body has like a pavolvian reaction to Derek when he wolfs out, because, jesus). Either way, he just tightens his grip and mumbles, "Stay, please," even though he knows he's being stupid and clingy and childish because the idea of getting left alone even for a second right now sets his heart racing, and not in a good way.

"Okay, shhh, I'm not going anywhere," Derek says soothingly, and Stiles sighs, goes limp and lax against the bed as he steadies somewhat, feels his heart rate slowly return to normal under the weight of Derek's hands. He doesn't even recognize that he's nodded off until he wakes up violently with a shock of cold dripping its way down his chest. It's a disorienting moment before he realizes that it's Derek running a wet, warm cloth over his stomach and his thighs. Where the water dries, goose bumps spread over his skin and set him trembling again.

"I thought you said you weren't gonna leave me," Stiles says. And yeah, he's pouting, but whatever.

"I didn't," Derek says matter-of-factly. "I carried you with me into the bathroom."

"Oh," Stiles says, "I guess you must have really tired me out, then. How long have I been asleep?"

Derek's face is doing that scowly thing again, like he's running the words coming out of Stiles's mouth through some kind of internal translator, into something more. And honestly, who would have thought it'd be Derek freaking Hale who would be fluent in Stiles?

"About forty-five minutes," Derek says. "You scared me a little, you know."

And it's weird, Stiles thinks, how he used to be so scared of the dark, used to cry and cry if his parents shut his door, always made them keep the hall light switched on so at least some of it bled into his dim bedroom. But here with Derek, whose eyes are like two lamps glowing in the dark, he thinks he might actually be okay.

"It's like that sometimes, I mean not like that, usually, like with Lydia all I got was a pretty gnarly nosebleed and a stress migraine, but this time it felt…" and Stiles flushes here, before saying, "it felt like touching the sun, or a super nova or something." Coming back from wherever it was that Stiles had to fall into to access whatever spark he allegedly possessed, it wasn't easy. It was exhausting, and usually left him weak in the knees and nursing a headache far worse than any Scott-and-Stiles's-misadventures-in-binge-drinking-hangover he's ever experienced. This time, though, it had just felt like his internal battery had been drained and somehow, Derek—touching him, and tasting him—was the key to recharging it.

Derek grimaces. "If I'd known you could get hurt, I wouldn't have let you do it."

"You don't get to "let me" do anything. I chose to, and I would choose to again. And for the record, I had a pretty good feeling that I'd be okay," Stiles answers, indignant.

"Yeah? How'd you figure that?"

"Because I'd be with you, idiot," At that, Derek huffs, but Stiles continues fiercely, "and I was, you know, okay, that is." And yeah, Stiles knows this kind of Derek's thing, the gigantic chip he carries on his shoulders, that dark and ugly, monstrous part of him that tell him he's doesn't deserve anything good, whispers in his ear and tries to dig up all the sins he's tried to bury . And Stiles, it's not like he's some shining paragon of mental health or anything, but he trusts what his gut tells him (and has always told him, if he's being honest) about Derek: that he's worth it. Just saying the words won't really mean anything to Derek, who rarely trusts himself, not really, so he hopes that the man can feel it, see it written plain as day across Stiles's face instead.

His teeth are chattering again, but before he can protest, Derek is pulling away. He's back in flash, pulling Stiles up by his elbows. "Arms up," he orders in that low, gentle voice that makes Stiles quiver in a way that has nothing to do with the cold. So he obeys, exhaling audibly when he finds himself enrobed in soft cotton that shrouds him in a calming blanket of the wolf's familiar, earthy scent. Derek's henley hangs off of him, the sleeves way too long and the neck wide enough to droop off an embarrassingly bony shoulder. And normally, Stiles, with his impudently self-righteous independent streak, would have balked at the way Derek manhandles him, but some part of his anxious lizard brain is soothed by the way he lets Derek have this, can relinquish the control he's always depended on to keep him upright and still be okay.

Derek's bulk feels like a solid wall against him and Stiles realizes with a jolt that he's been digging his fingers into the thin skin of Derek's wrists, leaving half-moon imprints, swollen and leaking tiny pinpricks of blood around the sharp points of his nails, and the man hasn't even tried to shake him off. Stiles wonders if it even hurts, or if Derek just doesn't care.

"Sorry," Stiles whispers, hiding his face into Derek's forearm and willing his fingers to unclench even though he never wants to let go. He watches, rapt, as the imprints shimmer and fade and there's no evidence of the wounds, just Stiles's memory of putting them there. He wonders if Derek can feel them ever, all those old injuries long healed, like scar tissue hiding underneath the skin.

"When you shift, when you heal, what does it feel like? Does it feel like magic?" Stiles asks.

"It feels as natural as breathing," Derek answers.

Stiles thinks that's kind of beautiful.

And the last thing he hears before the tempting pull of sleep claims him is Derek's rough voice in his ears resounding like an echo:

"Just don't go where I can't follow."

I won't, Stiles thinks, and he's certain he's never made an easier promise in his entire life.


End file.
